


Deku the Warcrafted

by RHJunior



Category: World of Warcraft, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHJunior/pseuds/RHJunior
Summary: Deku stumbles across a Little Shop that Wasn't There Yesterday... but you and I know it as the Lost Workshop...





	1. Chapter 1

Izuku trudged home from school, his head hung low and his mood in the pits. It had been another wretched day. His classmates had mocked him, his former best friend had knocked him around and torched his notebook… even the schoolteacher had belittled him for admitting he wanted to go to U.A. and become a Pro Hero.

The most depressing part of the whole thing was that this was the sort of day he’d come to expect ever since he’d discovered that he was Quirkless.

For the past 100 years, superhuman powers… Quirks… had existed in his world. Nearly eighty percent of the population had some form of Quirk; a handful of them had powers impressive enough to become Pro-Heroes-- superheroes by any other name. But Izuku was part of the dwindling remainder who had nothing.

He’d wanted to be a Hero since he was old enough to know what a Hero was. It had shattered him when the doctors had revealed he had the extra toe joint, the genetic marker that identified him as Quirkless. But deep down he had continued to cling to hope-- that maybe the doctors were wrong, that maybe he was a late bloomer… or that there would be some treatment, some cure, some alternative… He’d kept making his “Hero notebooks,” analyzing the pro Heroes and their Quirks “for the future,” kept hoping…

But he was feeling short on hope today.

He started to turn to take the underpass that led to his neighborhood… when something caught his eye. A loose paper stapled to a nearby power pole, flapping in a breeze. It was an odd bit of paper, almost like parchment; the writing looked hand brushed, almost antiquated. Curious he stepped over and pulled it off the pole.

And that’s where everything changed. In another lifetime there had been no flier. He had walked on down the tunnel and into an encounter with a villain, and a hero, that had set him on the course for destiny as the heir of All Might and the wielder of the most powerful Quirk on Earth, One for All.

This time though those events would not unfold.

He held the flier up; it was a bulletin, announcing the grand opening of a shop just down the road… No, if he was reading it right, it was more like a little collection of shops, all in one building. “World of Crafts? The Smithy? The Tinker’s Bench? Jeweler’s Pagoda? Oddments and Oddities? Buy Sell Trade? Hmm,” he muttered. They even had a little dining area, it said. The blurb boasted of the stores’ varied wares, but what caught his attention was--

“A wide and varied collection of Hero merchandise and artifacts,” he read aloud, a smile spreading on his face for the first time that day. What the heck, even a little window shopping would certainly lift his mood. And there were several coupons printed on the back…

Decision made, he turned to the right and kept walking down the street, right past the underpass and off in the direction of the address on the flier.

It bears noting that Midoriya Izuku was in fact a very intelligent and highly observant boy. So it might have been his uplifted mood that could be blamed for it, but he never noticed that the flier that had caught his attention, the one that had flapped about as if in a stiff breeze, had been doing so even though the air was completely still.

* * *

He found the shop easily enough; it was a wooden door with a stained-glass window, squeezed between a quick-mart and a small walk-in restaurant. Its only advertisement was a wooden sign proclaiming it “The Lost Workshop.” For all its unobtrusiveness, it stood out among the sliding glass and aluminum doors lining the street. “Odd, must be a mistake in the zoning ordinance or something,” Izuku muttered.

The door jingled merrily as he stepped inside. He found himself in a pleasant, brightly lit if somewhat jam-packed, curiosity shoppe-- the standing sign inside the door proclaimed it to be World of Crafts, “Subsidiary of the Lost Workshop, Azeroth Ltd.” And the place truly was packed with crafts. Model planes and zeppelins and other aircraft ranging from the mundane to the utterly fanciful hung from the ceiling; toy robots scuttled across the floor in a surprisingly lifelike fashion. Trinkets of all sorts filled the shelves, oddly steampunk-ish toys and tools; paint sets in almost unsettlingly bright colors, and parchments that proved to have strange textures under his fingertips; displays of handcrafted jewelry that glowed in the warm light. In a place of pride was a display of jewelry butterflies under bell jars made of glass and copper wire and gems that actually moved, slowly flapping their wings. He peered closely at those and made a mental note to buy one for his mother, if they weren’t too expensive--

“Those are solar powered,” a feminine voice said. He jumped and turned around. At the back of the store, next to the cash register, stood a young lady not much older than himself. She was dressed in coveralls and a sweatshirt, and had short blonde hair in a pixie cut and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She seemed to be fiddling with a pricing gun… She gave him a smile that reminded him of a fox, somehow. “It’s the wings,” she went on. “They’re actually little glass solar panels. So long as light shines on them the little solenoid in the body moves and makes the wings flap.”

She set the pricing gun down with a sigh and looked at him. “Sorry I didn’t speak up earlier,” she said. “I was messing with that thing. Gotta convert all the prices on the crockery from francs to yen. What a pain. Welcome to World of Crafts, I’m Lisa Wilbourn what can I… do… you… for?” She trailed off oddly, her smile fading. Her eyes roved up and down over him as she spoke in the most disturbing fashion.

Izuku hesitated. “Um, I saw on your flyer here--” he held it up in front of himself defensively-- “ if this is the wrong store I apologize--”

“Oh no no no, this is the right place,” Lisa said, waving her hand. “This is just the front shop. At least THIS week,” she muttered. Ignoring Izuku’s puzzled frown she went on. “We have a few nifty things here, but I get the feeling you ain’t seeing what you’re wanting.”

Taking her hint, he took a breath. “It says here you have… displays of hero equipment and... artifacts?”

Lisa’s eyes sparkled and her vixen-like smile spread back across her face. “Ahhh,” she said. “I see you’re in the market for the _exceptionally_ rare.” She pointed to a door behind her. It was a solid wooden door with the words “the Lost Workshop” carved into it. “The rest of-- well, everything-- is through that door. Go on, feel free to go anywhere you wish...” she waved him to the door. Bowing politely, he edged past her and stepped through. “Oh, and hold onto those coupons!” she called after him as the door shut.

The moment the door closed she hustled over to the register and pressed the button on the odd little brass-belled intercom there. Her own Power was buzzing in her brain with the info she’d picked up giving him the once over.

_Young asian male, age 14. Middle to lower-middle class._

_Green hair, natural color._

_Ambitious, hopeful, brave, honest, compassionate, innocent..._

_Quirkless._

_Bullied for Quirklessness._

_Desires one thing: to be a true Hero._

She spoke into the horn-shaped mouthpiece. “Bayleaf, this is Lisa. We got a live one. Green eyes, green hair.. I sent him on back.”

“ _What? You sure?”_

“Boss, the kid has such a noble spirit it _hurts._ He’s the kind of good and heroic and innocent that I’ve never _seen_. And life is absolutely punching him in the face for it. He needs our help-- he _deserves_ it, if anyone does.”

“ _Okay, I’ll pass the word on, make sure everyone keeps an eye on him till he makes the Choice.”_

“And Boss? That poor little Cinnamon Bun better walk outta here with the absolute BEST we have or so help me, wolf boy, I’ll wait until you’re asleep one day and shave you BALD.”

“ _Okay, okay! I said we’d set him up, didn’t I?”_ The voice at the other end sounded amused… but it was clear he didn’t doubt she’d keep her word.

* * *

The moment Izuku stepped through the door he found himself gaping in astonishment. He had expected a storeroom or something similar; instead he found himself standing in a small roofed-over courtyard. Benches were scattered here and there, as were a few glassed-in displays. A fountain bubbled in the center. Doors and halls and stairways leading both up and down branched off from the courtyard in every direction.. some going several stories down, or up.

“How is this possible?” he gasped. “This should be overlapping the stores on either side...”

He looked up at the ceiling some three stories up and realized that the soft light filling the room was not coming from lanterns or fluorescents, but from a canopy of glowing vines and leaves.

This was NOT a normal shopping plaza.

He walked around, looking at the free-standing displays. The items under glass were eclectic: a shield patterned in red and white stripes with a large star in the center; a cracked warhammer; a bright green bow with a quiver full of green fletched arrows; a row of rings in bell jars, each glowing a different color of the rainbow; a boomerang carved in the shape of a bat… The plaques on each display told him very little; frustratingly they were all in English.

And more vexing, there were no signs or maps to the rest of the place. Shrugging, he picked a hallway at random and moved on.

The first store he stumbled into was a jeweler’s. He took one look at the glittering rings and necklaces on display and knew everything there was too rich for his blood. He gave an apologetic bow to the man with the fox Quirk sitting at his workbench and departed.

The next was, as best he could tell, an art gallery. Ink paintings lined every wall, scrolls were piled high in the corners, and sets of paints, brushes and canvases were on sale. Izuku imagined Katsuki catching him unawares with his arms full of paintings and parchment, and cringed at the mental image of the resulting conflagration. The panda lady running the shop tried to persuade him to perhaps buy at least a little memento-- she particularly tried to push him into buying a tiny glass vial of decorative sand, for some reason-- but he brushed aside her stilted Chinese as politely as he could and bowed his way out.

As the shoppes grew more exotic, so did the displays. An entire wall of swords, some of them so oddly shaped or ridiculously huge that they had to be impossible to wield. A single wand or baton, like a stage magician might use, sealed under a bell jar… he could make out the English words “Holly” and “Phoenix,” but nothing else. A top hat alongside a starry wizard’s hat, with a plastic carrot hanging out of it for some reason. A wall display holding a bow with no string, a shield, a crude wooden club, a cloak, a bo staff, and another wizard’s hat, this one unadorned…

What’s more, it almost seemed like the corridors and doorways were changing place, moving about as he wandered around.

He was starting to get rather turned around when he heard the clanging. “Hammers on anvils?” Curious, he followed his ears to yet another door around yet another corner.

On the other side was a full blown blacksmith shop. It was enormous, with four different forges along the back wall going hot, each one’s flames burning with a different strange color. (But where was the smoke? He’d seen no chimneys outside!) A warehouse’s worth of medieval armor and weapons of every description were scattered about, standing on manikins or hanging from racks, gleaming dully in the firelight.

Standing by one of the anvils in the open area around the furnaces was a tall blonde man with broad shoulders and chest and arms knotted with muscle. He was stripped to the waist and wearing a leather apron and gloves, and was hammering dutifully away at a glowing ingot of metal. He looked up as Izuku walked in-- heaven only knew how he’d heard Izuku over the din of his own hammer-- and nodded. “Welcome!” he said with a wave and a smile worthy of All Might. “Afraid I’ll be busy with this for a bit… Feel free to look around!” With that he returned to his hammering.

Despite the sweltering heat, Izuku did just that. He wandered among the suits of armor, fascinated. Every type was here; Eastern style, European style, some styles and forms from places-- he had no idea… the weapons were just as widely assorted. He had a guess now as to where some of the weapons on display around the rest of the complex came from.

As he worked his way through the room, he came across another door. It was ajar and Izuku could feel a cool breeze wafting through. That was definitely the ticket; it WAS getting seriously stuffy in the blonde man’s workshop.

The room beyond was a large square chamber with a stone floor and illuminated with more of those strange glowing lamp-plants, quiet, well lit and cool. There were no furnishings and none of the ubiquitous galleria-type displays. The only decoration was a circular pattern etched in the floor---

“Oh, neat, a labyrinth!” Izuku said with a chuckle. A labyrinth it was; a looping, repeating circular path that turned around and doubled back on itself over and over till it ended at the center. “Monks used to walk these while they were doing their meditations… I suppose this is that guy’s meditation room?” Amused, he stepped to the beginning of the labyrinth path.

The lines engraved in the stone floor began to glow on either side of his feet.

He almost jumped back out. Almost. But his curiosity at the display kept his feet on the path like they were glued. He inched forward; the glow spread to match his progress. “Cool,” he said.

He proceeded along the path, the glow following his heels-- till suddenly the path ahead of his toes glowed red. He stopped in surprise. Words appeared in the stone floor before him, the letters glowing red.

In English, darn it.

He read the words, painfully translating each one in his head. “I am sworn to Valor.” It sounded like something All Might would say...

There was a sound like stone sliding on stone. The letters turned from red to gold. Izuku blinked. “I guess this means I go on?” He walked further along the maze-path. More letters appeared at his feet.

“My heart... shall know… shall know only... virtue.” Again there was the sound of stone-on-stone, again the letters changed color. He proceeded on.

By the third time he was in the swing of things.

“My blade shall defend the helpless...” The words gleamed gold.

“My Might shall uphold the weak...” The sliding sound was louder. But there was no way he was stopping now.

“My word shall speak only truth--” he was almost at the center of the maze. He realized that the sliding sound he’d heard had been the center of the floor opening up.

“My Wrath shall undo the wicked!” from the hole in the floor rose up a stone plinth. Mounted atop it were a plain, one handed sword and an undecorated kite shield. Beneath the shield was a plaque; the letters on it burned red. Heart pounding, Izuku read them aloud.

“So let the code… for.. forever shine…

so let my heart hold them bright!”

The words melted and changed, shifting from ember red to molten gold.

_Thou hast spoken true._

_Take up thy sword and thy shield--_

_Paladin.”_

Hands trembling, Izuku took the shield and fitted it over his own arm, took the hilt of the sword and lifted it up.

Then light, blinding, searing, pure and terrible, fell from above, spearing through him and igniting him body and soul with living flame.

* * *

He woke up sprawled out in an overstuffed chair.

Groaning and rubbing his head, he sat up. A moment’s panicked self-inventory indicated all his bodily parts were still attached. “What the hell was that?” he croaked.

He shook his head and looked around-- he was back in the World of Crafts shop, sitting, yes, in an overstuffed chair behind the counter. Seated on a stool next to the register was the blonde freckled girl from before. She was smiling at him. “I see you’ve made your choice,” she said. She patted the sword and shield lying on the counter next to her.

“Choice?” Izuku said, utterly lost.

She picked up a leather satchel sitting next to the sword, then dropped it. “Special bonus today, you get one of our patented Handy Haversacks along with your purchase. (I took the liberty of tearing off the appropriate coupon.) He watched in amazement as she stuck the sword and shield into the Haversack, which was far too small to hold either, without any problem. She held up a couple of booklets. “Instruction manuals. Important, you WILL need to read them.” She popped those into the Haversack as well.

She folded her hands in her lap. “Now comes the topic of payment.”

“Payment?” Izuku sputtered. “but-but I--”

“Ah ah ah! No refunds, exchanges, or substitutions,” she chided, waving a finger. “Of course if you’re a little low on Yen at the moment, we DO barter and trade...”

Izuku rubbed his head. This girl was fast-talking so hard it was making him dizzy. “Trade?”

“Certainly. Whaddya got?”

Izuku decided to play along with the confusing girl. He cast about; his school backpack was right next to the cushy chair he was sunk in. Wordlessly he dumped the contents out on the counter. The girl poked through the contents with her finger, her face blank. Izuku grimaced to himself. He had a few hundred yen in his wallet… maybe if he threw in his watch…?

He didn’t really care if it didn’t make sense. All of reality had stopped making sense the moment he’d stepped through that door into a workshop-slash-store complex that was bigger on the inside than on the outside… he would agree to just about anything she said. He just wanted an exit, and now.

“Ah! Bingo!” She reached out and plucked up… his Hero notebook? “Perfect,” she smirked, flipping through the burned, water-stained pages. “Hold on a minute.” She hopped down off her stool and stepped through a door that he could have sworn wasn’t there a second ago. He heard a whirring sound that went on for a minute or two, then she returned. She handed him a fistful of loose pages. “Had to Xerox the thing,” she said. “Whaaat? You didn’t think we were going to leave you without your notes did ya? You’ll need those!

“The original, however--” she fanned herself with the scorched notebook, smirking. “That, we keep.” She shoveled the rest of the contents of his backpack, including the backpack, into the Haversack. She picked up the Haversack and held it out to him.. “Pro tip, the key word for your Haversack is ‘Equip.’” She said the word in English. “Just say it out loud and Bob’s your Uncle.”

“Eq--?” a delicate finger pressed his lips shut. “No no, honey, not now, only when you NEED it, understand?”

Izuku nodded… then shook his head. “...May I go now please?” Izuku pleaded feebly.

“Sure, cute stuff!” she said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it all out. Just read the manuals. And if you need anything else… well, you have our card.” She stuck a business card in his shirt pocket and put the strap of his new haversack over his shoulder. “Be sure and tell your friends about us. Bye!”

The door jangled, and he was out on the street. He spun about to try and get one last word in-- a question, a complaint, he didn’t know-- only to find the door was missing. Not only was the door missing, but the space the door had been IN was missing… the store and the restaurant were now flush with each other, not an inch of space between them.

“…..Ohhhhhkay,” Izuku said. “Okay. Okay. It’s time to go home now...” He turned on his heel and walked-- very BRISKLY-- in the direction of home.

He was three blocks from home when he saw the explosions.

Some motivation, some strange instinct drove him to detour in the direction the chaos was coming from. When he arrived, crowds had already gathered. But he could clearly see a villain rampaging in the middle of the street… a villain with some sort of slime Quirk, that gave him a body of living ooze. There were several heroes there but they were being held at bay by the fires and by the explosive blasts being released by his panicked captive, a yellow-haired kid in a school uniform--

_Yellow hair. Explosions. Kacchan._

He was moving before he even realized it. Kacchan was a jerk, Kacchan was a bully, Kacchan had made his life miserable for years-- but none of that mattered. He had lost Kacchan as a friend years ago but he wasn’t about to lose Kacchan to death at the hands of a villain.

He never even noticed the golden glow starting to halo his body as he ran. Something heavy filled his right hand; lacking any other plan he threw it at the monster’s head--

A golden hammer of light leapt from his fingertips and rocketed into the slime Villain’s face. The villain’s head and a huge chunk of his upper torso exploded in a wet spray. Slime sizzled at the touch of the light. Izuku stood there, gaping in astonishment at what he’d done.

Had that really been him??

The mountain of sludge undulated and rippled in agony. “You little bastard!” the slime villain screamed. He pulled himself together and raised a slimy fist the size of an anvil to crush the brat that had hurt him. Izuku raised his arm to shield his head. Purely on reflex he blurted out the word the sales girl had told him:

“ _Equip!!”_

The slime villain’s enormous fist flashed down-- and splattered harmlessly on the adamantine shield on Izuku’s arm. His other hand, wielding a simple one-handed European sword, flashed up. The blade was simple, unadorned, barely sharp enough to cut butter… it’s glowing edge sheared through the slime villain’s semisolid arm like a razor through silk. The villain screamed as his smoking “arm” fell to the ground and splashed into a bubbling puddle.

“What did you do to me??” he screamed at Izuku.

Izuku said nothing. He could see Kacchan, still half-submerged in the slime villain’s body, his eyes filled with fear and confusion.

_Let my wrath undo the wicked._

Izuku hefted his shield, leveled his blazing sword, screamed and charged.

* * *

An hour or so later, Midoriya Izuku staggered through the front door of his and his mother’s apartment. He was rumpled and disheveled, his clothes were spattered with a rather disgusting mung and were anyone standing close enough they’d smell smoke. A blunt one-handed sword dangled from his right hand; an unadorned kite shield hung from his left arm.

His mother jumped up from the sofa. She had been riveted to the TV set, watching the news of the nearby villain attack unfold. Her cellphone fell from her hand, forgotten. “Izuku! Where have you been? There was a villain attack not five blocks from here--” she ran over to fuss over her son, patting him down to look for injuries. “What happened to you? I’ve been calling everyone, trying to find where you were--”

“Sorry, Mom,” Izuku said. He sounded dazed. “I stopped off at a new store on the way home…” He looked at her. “Oh yeah, and then a villain attacked… I had to save Kacchan from him…”

“WHAAAT?”

“...It’s okay, there were Pro Heros there-- though they didn’t do much… and then All Might showed up and finished the bad guy off, so everything was fine anyway...” He kicked off his shoes and started walking to his room. He looked over his shoulder and gave her an odd smile. “Oh, by the way, I got my Quirk today.”

Inko gasped. “How…?”

“I think I bought it at the store.” He pulled a flier-- one with a rectangle torn out of one corner-- out of his pocket and let it fall to the floor from nerveless fingers. “Sorry… Scuse me. I kinda gotta go lie down and… process things.” His door closed with a click.

Inko stood there, openmouthed and speechless, staring at her son’s bedroom door.

* * *

Izuku carefully propped his sword and shield up on his dresser and flopped down across his bed. To his surprise his mother didn’t come charging in demanding explanations… he’d said he needed some time, so she took him at his word. Mom was good like that.

After what felt like several hours he stirred himself and sat up. He opened up his Haversack and dug around inside.

His arm went WAY deeper than it should have… yet he couldn’t find anything! Baffled, he grabbed the bag and flipped it over. He shook it firmly. “Come on, I saw her put all that stuff in there… empty already!”

He then remembered how the shield and sword had leapt into his hands, and had a moment of brilliance. “Empty!” he said, this time in English.

The Haversack let out a faint burping sound, and suddenly his schoolbooks, papers, and backpack were piled on the floor at his feet. The last thing to come out were the booklets the sales girl had tossed in. He picked the first one up.

The title was in English too, dammit. He sighed… he saw a great deal of slow, tiresome translation in his future. “Black… blacksmithing. Arm and Arm? No… Arms… and Armor. Huh.” He reached for the second.

“Jewels and.. Jewelrycrafting…?”

The third had a picture of a pickaxe on the cover. “Mining and Met-- Metallurgy...” He set it next to the others on the bed and reached for the next.

“Han… Handy Haversack Owner’s Manual.’ Heh. Definitely reading THAT cover to cover...”

When he picked up the last one his breath caught. On the cover was a picture of a sword and shield mounted on a pedestal. “So You Want… So You Want to be a Paladin.”

The card the girl had slipped in his shirt pocket fell out of his pocket when he bent over and fluttered to the floor. He picked it up: it was plain manila cardstock with the legend “The Lost Workshop” printed across it. As he watched, ink crawled across the bottom of the page and formed into numbers-- a telephone number. He grabbed his cellphone off his nightstand and dialed.

One ring… Two… he held his breath.

_Klick. “Why hellooo, Izuku-san. --Is ‘san’ right? I’m still figuring out all those honorifics. So you’re ready to barter for the REST of the equipment set, hmm?”_

Izuku had no idea how someone could smirk over the telephone. Nevertheless his own eager grin matched the one in her voice. “Oh, I think so, yes...”

Five minutes later he was stuffing the last of his notebooks, his All Might collectibles, and a few other items into his bottomless Haversack and memorizing the new address slowly writing itself across the bottom of the business card. “Mom-- I know I have a lot to explain, but there’s this store I’ve got to show you...”

* * *

The U.A. admissions practical was proving far more than Uraraka Ochako was prepared for. The chaos, the noise, the explosions… she had been prepared for some mayhem and violence-- No Uraraka was a wilting hothouse flower, after all!-- but the sheer magnitude of it had thrown her.

She had held her own, for sure; using her Quirk, Zero Gravity, to send dozens of robots hurtling into the sky and then plummeting to their destruction. But in all the anarchy she’d gotten too far ahead of the main body of applicants. She was isolated, there were one and two pointers closing from every direction, and the nausea from her Quirk backlash was getting too severe to ignore--

Then the Zero Pointer had appeared and all Hell had broken loose.

The gigantic building-sized robot (what were the school staff THINKING?) had come rumbling around the corner, smashing its house-sized fists into the towers on either side of the street and sending clouds of dust and chunks of rubble flying. The students had, wisely, panicked and bolted. Uraraka hadn’t dodged fast enough. A concrete wall had toppled, knocking her to the ground and pinning her by her leg. Even if she had time to levitate the concrete off her, she couldn’t flee. If she was to judge by the pain her ankle was shattered. The Zero Pointer was coming straight towards her, and the dratted one and two pointers were still closing in, oblivious to their own inevitable stomping. She could see their red eyes glowing as they locked onto her.

“TARGET LOCKED,” a dozen robotic voices announced at once.

CLANG. CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANGCLANG CLANG. Without warning a shining golden _something_ streaked out of nowhere, decapitating the first robot. It rapidly ricocheted from robot to robot, leaving shattered metal and flying sparks in its wake. Six, seven, eight robots fell in less time than it took to say it.

She barely tracked it with her eyes. A gauntleted hand snatched the whirring death-device … a gleaming silver kite shield, with no mark or heraldry on it… out of the air. The hand slipped the shield onto an arm. It was a male figure, decked out in gleaming silver and white plate armor. A blood red cape, tattered at the edges from hard combat, billowed from his pauldroned shoulders, and she could just make out curls of emerald-green hair peeking out from under the rim of his open-faced helmet. The boyish face was at contrast with the burning fervor in the wide green eyes.

It was-- oh what was his name?? Deku, the boy from the front gate! The one she’d saved from a trip and fall. He’d been charming and shy, and thanked her profusely for catching him with her power. He’d put on quite the comedy routine at the admissions desk, too-- they’d ordered him to empty the leather haversack he carried, and he’d proceeded to pull a small mountain of odds and ends out and pile them on the desk in front of everyone. Some of it was obvious support gear-- pieces of armor, weapons-- but some was ridiculous. Notebooks, action figures and collectibles, hammer and tongs, a jeweler’s kit, a rubber duck, a whole cherry pie... At one point he’d pulled out some sort of mechanized ANVIL, of all things.

The teachers had nearly lost their minds when he revealed this wasn’t his Quirk… it was just an odd property of the Haversack itself. They’d broken down at that point and let him past, labeling the whole mess as “support gear.” Then they’d nearly had an aneurysm when he said something in English, snapped his fingers, and the bag had instantly refilled itself with everything he’d unloaded-- finishing with a tidy burp. He’d just shrugged, given everyone a goofy smile, and went on in to take the written exam.

She’d had to run to the bathroom, she’d come so close to peeing herself laughing.

There was no shy goofy smile now. She’d never seen an expression so fierce on anyone so young.

The remaining robots-- wisely for them, she thought-- retargeted on this new threat. It did them little good. With a yell he flung something from one hand… it turned into a blazing golden hammer that began streaking around the armored boy in a rapidly widening spiral. Even as the spectral warhammer began smashing robots one after the other he firmed his grip on his sword and charged the lone three pointer in the center of the mob. The sword flamed with light and carved through the battle-bot’s armor like it was butter.

As the last one-pointer hit the ground in pieces, there was a tremendous boom and a cloud of dust rolled down the street. She realized he’d inflicted all this destruction in less time than it took for the Zero Pointer to take a single step. He sheathed his sword and ran to her side. He grabbed the edge of the concrete and lifted; she screamed in pain as the block shifted wrong, grinding her already broken ankle. He looked at her with desperate eyes; he’d obviously realized there wasn’t enough time to move the rubble off her leg without crushing it.

“Can you float it?” he shouted at her. She shook her head. It was at least a ton of cement block-- far more than she could lift on the dregs of her power. He looked at her, looked at the oncoming Zero Pointer. “Can you float ME?” he shouted. She nodded; she could manage that-- at least for a few seconds--

He held out his hand to her. “Hit me!” She grabbed his hand and infused him with her power… enough to get past the armor to the person underneath. She swooned, dizzy and nauseous. “Pray this works,” he said. He hefted his sword, ran forward a couple of steps, then kicked off as hard as he could from the ground.

She watched from where she lay prone on the pavement as he rocketed into the air, rising up to meet the Zero Pointer. She strained to hold her Quirk a bit longer. He was up to its knee… up to its waist, then what passed for its chest--

His sword traced a blazing streak across the Zero Pointer’s chest. The armor plate split like paper. He seized a handhold just as her control broke. “R-release!” she choked.

He grabbed the edges of the rip in both gauntleted fists and pulled. With a painful squeal of tormented metal the split widened. Once it was as wide as his shoulders, he manifested another blazing warhammer. This one was so bright Ochako had to squint to look at it. He wound up--

“SMITE… EVIL!!”

And flung the hammer into the Zero Pointer’s open chest. Sparks flew and smoke spurted; explosions and the sounds of damaged machinery tearing itself apart echoed from the steel leviathan. He leapt away just as the metal monster toppled backward, spewing smoke and sparks and oil from every seam.

And the boy that killed it was plummeting through the air in freefall. Ochako reached out with one hand, thinking in her delirium that somehow she could reach across the distance, hit him with her Quirk in the split second before he struck the ground--

Then his cloak billowed out. He slowed, falling gently to the ground and landing on one knee unharmed. She heard him let out a whoosh of air in relief. “Excellent, the parachute cloak worked-- Hold on--” He got to his feet and ran to her side. “Come on, you people!” he shouted at the students standing around staring. “Help me get this off her leg!”

In a few moments he had four or five other candidates gathered around getting a grip on the stone. “One, two, three--” with a grunt they heaved, lifting the broken wall. A boy with tape dispensers for elbows took her by the armpits and dragged her out from underneath. They dropped the wall with a crash. Applause and backslaps went around.

“Oh wow,” the tape dispenser boy said when he saw her mangled leg. “That looks nasty. Someone get Recovery Girl!”

“I got it,” Deku said. He went down one knee next to her, doffed his helmet and gently placed one hand on her leg. “Okay, take a deep breath,” he said. “Healing bones can be… weird.” She blinked and obeyed.

His hand on her leg began to glow. The glow brightened and began to spread down into her leg. The pain vanished. She flinched at the crack and pop as bones realigned themselves and fused back together, and torn tendons and ligaments knitted back together. There was no pain-- but he was right, it felt DISTURBING. But at the same time the light was so soothing…

When the glow faded away, save for the tattered leg of her tracksuit, her leg was like new. He gave her a hand; blushing she accepted and he lifted her to her feet effortlessly. “Whoa,” someone said. That seemed to the the consensus from the rest as well.

The green haired boy gave them all an awkward grin. “Well while I’m at it--” He lifted one hand over his head, the palm facing the sky. There was a faint THOOM, and a cone of light seemed to fall out of the air on him. The pavement beneath his feet glowed and rivulets of light spread out across the asphalt. All around him scrapes, bruises, cuts and other injuries faded away. “Wow, awesome! Thanks,” said one blonde kid with a lightning bolt in his hair, giving the greenette a thumbs up.

“Oui, merci beaucoup,” said another.

“Truly manly of you, bro,” a redhead boy with shark teeth said, flexing his healed arm.

“One side, let me through children, help is on the way--” A tiny grey haired woman in a doctor’s coat and leaning on a cane shaped like a syringe came hobbling up. “Who’s injured here? I… oh!” The moment she stepped into the glowing circle her eyes went wide behind her hero visor. “My word… my sinuses cleared up!” She held up a hand and wiggled her fingers experimentally. “And my arthritis hasn’t felt this good in years.”

Deku greeted her with a wide smile worthy of All Might. “Recovery Girl! Hi, I’m a big fan. Everything’s okay here...”

Recovery Girl looked around at the glowing area and the healed students. “So this was your doing?” she exclaimed, her eyebrows rising. She gave Ochako’s ankle a quick examination, then looked over some of the other healed applicants. “Good work, my boy,” she said, pleased. “Nice to see another healing Quirk in the field for once.”

“That’s not all he does,” someone said reverently. The downed Zero Pointer burped out another minor explosion.

“So I see,” Recovery Girl said. “Holy Moly.” She adjusted her visor. “Well, thanks to you I’ve got a little head start on patching everyone up for a change. Crazy staff,” she grumbled to herself. “Giant robots! Against teenagers! They’re all half mad, I tell you, and I won’t say which half...”

“Do you need some help?” the armored teen said. “I can do some more healing--”

“Oh no, I’m afraid not, dearie,” Recovery Girl said. “You’re not even close to licensed yet. All this--” she waved around with her cane-- “we can let slide as First Aid, but we’d both get in trouble if I had an unlicensed Hero tagging along, doing healing on people...” she sounded annoyed and regretful.

“Sorry,” the green haired boy said-- and he sounded it.

“Don’t worry, dearie,” she said. “You’ll be healing folk and saving lives all over soon enough. I’ve seen a lot of great Pro Heros in the making and you’re certainly on the way.” She handed out packets of vitamin gummies to everyone there, out of habit more than anything, then wandered off. She had several more testing arenas to check for the wounded yet.

Ochako tapped the boy on one of his pauldrons. “Um… Deku?”

He looked at her and winced. “Ah, that’s not my name--” he said.

“Oh! I heard that other boy--” she stammered.

He rolled his eyes. “A _former_ friend,” he said. “The nickname wasn’t exactly made in kindness.”

“I’m sorry--”

“It’s okay,” he sighed. “What was it?”

“I… I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “You, you saved my life--” the enormity of it was just starting to hit her.

He gave her a half-smile. “Heheh. Well, it’s only fair,” he said. “You saved me from getting my face flattened.”

She blinked. “Oh-- the, ah, tripping--” she giggled then blushed.

“The tripping thing, yeah.”

They both paused, both seeming to realize that they were actually speaking to someone of the opposite sex and that it was supposed to be rather awkward. “….My name’s Uraraka Ochako,” she said. “But you can call me Ochako.”

He gave her a smile as warm as the sun. “Midoriya Izuku,” he said. “Call me Izuku.”

* * *

_This one's been buzzing around the back of my head for weeks. I couldn't stop until I had it typed out and posted._

_Now, let's see how many people spot ALL the hidden references in the story... ;)_


	2. Chapter 2

Friday evening, Power Loader found himself welcoming an unexpected guest to the Development Studio. He had just finished putting out the fires from Hatsume Mei’s latest catastrophic invention when a thumping came from the large double doors at the entrance. “Ugh, finish extinguishing that,” he snapped, and tromped to the doors (he could do an impressive amount of tromping for someone of such slight build-- of course, he was usually wearing several hundred pounds of mechanized gear…). He hit the buzzer, opening the steel doors.

Standing on the other side was a green haired, freckle-faced young man. Higari recognized him immediately-- it was the hero-course student with the fixation on medieval knights... Midoriya, that was it. He was surprisingly lean, for all the armor he’d lugged around in the practicals. He was obviously dressed for work in boots, fairly old jeans, tee-shirt, and had a pair of work gloves tucked through his belt and work goggles up on his head. He had a leather haversack hanging on one hip, the strap over his chest. “Majima-sensei?” he said. “I’m Midoriya Izuku. Aizawa-sensei said I would find what I need here...”

“Konnichiwa, Midoriya-san,” Power Loader said. He let a bit of his stress out in his voice. “What was it you were needing? I’m afraid the Support students aren’t really available to work on your gear--”

“Who’s this?” Hatsume Mei pushed in from the side, abandoning her still smoking invention to come stare at the boy. She pushed up her goggles and leaned in, making Midoriya lean back a bit in surprise. “New Support student?….Nahh. Wait!” she snapped her gloved fingers. “I know you! Hero course, got the Knight in Shining Armor thing going on… Midokya?”

“Midoriya. Um, Izuku.”

“Right right.” The pinkette flashed him a toothy grin. “About time you showed up to replace that stone age crap you’re lugging around! Hi, I’m Hatsume, Come on, I can fit you out with some proper Support gear, my babies are just the thing for a guy like--” she reached out to try and drag him in.

The boy held up his hands to try and stop the torrent of Hatsume-speak. “Wait wait wait!” he said, smiling nervously. “I’m not here to ask for equipment!”

“You’re not?” Hatsume said, eyes wide with surprise. She squinted at him suspiciously. “Why not?”

“Hatsume...” Power Loader said, aggrieved.

“I’m, actually, I’m looking for a workspace,” Midoriya said. He shrugged the strap of his bag up on his shoulder. “It’s a little crowded in my apartment for the work I do, and the noise and mess upsets my Mom anyway, so...”

Higari raised his eyebrows. “So what exactly do you need?” he said. And why did Eraserhead think Power Loader had it to spare?

The boy shrugged. “A clear space, mostly. But… well…” he hesitated, as if he was scared of a refusal. “A forge? An anvil? Maybe equipment to smelt--”

The light dawned. “Ahh, blacksmithing gear?” Midoriya nodded, clearly relieved. “I know what Aizawa-san was referring to. Come on.” He stepped back and motioned for the boy to follow.

The sliding door was a little rusty, but it eventually gave way. Higari slid it aside and reached for the light switch inside. “We obviously don’t get much use out of this room,” he said as the workspace lit up. “Everyone’s using polymers and ceramic composites and what not these days, and most custom made metal parts we end up ordering in from factories elsewhere. I keep this around though, spend a few weeks giving the students an understanding of the basics.”

“Ancient history lessons,” Hatsume snorted behind him.

A person could be forgiven for mistaking the room for a museum setpiece. The room had a concrete floor pitted with burns and smeared with scorch marks. The walls and roof were concrete as well, the lighting was hanging steel fixtures with the bulbs behind cages. There were anvils, quenching troughs, work benches, racks of tools on the walls for everything from glassblowing to working iron. Crucibles for smelting hung from chains and pulleys. A huge furnace dominated one end of the room, a heavy rolling steel door dominated the other. “This setup has everything you need for the most basic materials fabrication--”

“Arts and crafts,” Hatsume sneered.

“Will you go deal with your invention before it blows up again?” Power Loader said, exasperated. She gave a sniff and strode off.

“Anyway. This what you’re looking for?” Higari asked Midoriya. Midoriya nodded eagerly.

“Definitely better than the portable setup I’ve been working with,” he said.

Portable… what? “Now hold your horses,” Higari said, holding up one oversized hand. “I need to know you’re trained with this stuff before I set you loose on it.”

Midoriya shrugged affably. “So what do you need?”

“Show me you know how to actually use this kind of crap,” Higari said. He looked over and saw an ingot lying forgotten on one of the worktables. He picked it up and brushed the dust off. “Here. Take this and turn it into-- hm, anything. A tool, a utensil, I don’t care.”

The green haired boy hefted the bar of metal in one hand. “Uh, mind if I use my own equipment? Seems a bit much to crank up that furnace just for this.”

Higari leaned back against a worktable and crossed his arms. This he had to see. “Okay…. but I – where the hell did that come from??” The moment the word “okay” had crossed his lips, Midoriya had opened his haversack and pulled out an anvil. A full sized, free standing anvil.

“How?? What??” He got to his feet. “How the Devil did--”

Midoriya shrugged and smiled apologetically. “I bought the bag from someone whose Quirk lets them make things that are bigger on the inside than the outside,” he said. “It’s freaky, but it works.” He laughed and patted the anvil. “They provided me with this too, and a few other tools.”

“If there’s a Support company out there who produces anything like that, I haven’t heard of them,” Higari said suspiciously.

Midoriya got evasive. “They’re… a foreign company,” he said. “Contact by invite only. They’re very exclusive and they like their privacy. I was lucky to find them.” He wouldn’t meet Power Loader’s gaze.

“Did they give you their registration number?” Higari demanded. If they didn’t have a registration code, they were black market-- and that would mean trouble. Midoriya looked nervous. He fumbled a bit, but finally pulled a small piece of manila paper the size of a business card out of his pocket and handed it over. Higari glared at it. He had to rub his eyes to clear the blurriness out; he just wasn’t getting enough sleep… sure enough, there was the code, eighteen alphanumerical symbols, right under the name of the company, “Azeroth Ltd.” He relaxed a bit and handed the card back. “You’d better keep that handy,” he said as Midoriya stuffed it back in his pocket. “The Powers that Be get all kinds of cranky about unregistered Support equipment.” Well, that was settled… what had he been worrying about again?

Higari looked at the anvil again. Actually it was more than an anvil. There was a small forge below the anvilhead, with a set of motorized bellows to the side. Midoriya flipped a switch Higari couldn’t quite see, and the bellows began to rhythmically pump. The miniature forge began to glow red with heat as God-knew-what fuel inside it began to burn. “This thing is handy,” the boy said as he put on his work gloves and donned an apron from a nearby rack, “But it’s got it’s limitations.” He pulled a pair of tongs from his haversack that were far too long to have fit in the bag, picked up the ingot and began to heat it in the flames.

Over the next hour Higari watched openmouthed as this fresh faced kid hammered, heated, quenched, folded, and shaped the steel ingot as if he’d been doing it for fifty years. A final quenching and he set the finished piece on the anvil and turned off the bellows. “Well, sir?”

Higari looked over the piece. It was a dagger with a twelve-inch blade and a plain, unadorned grip and crossguard. It was deceptively plain, but Power Loader could see the faint rainbow striations in the blade that showed howthe metal had been folded and refolded. He picked it up and hefted it; the balance was just about perfect.

“Here, sir,” Midoriya said. He took the blade from the Support teacher and pulled out a whetstone. He gave the blade several practiced strokes across the stone, then handed the blade back pommel-first.

Higari looked at him, then looked at the blade. On a whim he threw it, mumblety-peg style, into the tabletop next to him. It sank three full inches into the hardened oak. Holy crap.

“Any good?” the boy said. Higari shot him a look-- no, he wasn’t being sarcastic. He was genuinely looking for approval.

Higari sat there ruminating for several minutes. He got to his feet. “Okay, let me give you the breakdown on the safety procedures for the big forge...”

  
The weekend crawled by. Izuku was at the Development Studio all of Friday evening and late into the night… then next morning he was there, bright and early, before the sun had even finished rising. At first Power Loader had watched him like a hawk, but as the weekend slowly unwound he relaxed his vigil, only checking in on the boy once in a while. (He had other headaches; Hatsumi Mei alone would have been a distraction-- and the girl never actually seemed to leave!-- but there were at least a half dozen other students working on things over the long weekend.)

Not that he could do more than guess what the boy was up to anyway. He had piles of metal junk and scrap… iron, copper, aluminum… dragged to the delivery door-- “I salvaged it from Dagobah Beach,” he said-- and smelted it down to ingots. Then he’d started making some sort of alloy out of the mess…  
several times he’d seen Midoriya pull something out of that haversack of his-- a powder, or a lump of ore, or a few scraps and shavings of something-- and add it to the crucible.

What was baffling, though, if not outright alarming, was how much work the boy was getting done. He’d gone from recycling scrap to pouring out metal ingots in a single day, and now just a day later he was going at it (pun intended) hammer and tongs, to judge by the incessant ringing of hammer on anvil. Higari had peeked in Sunday evening and seen heaps of gleaming metal rings on the worktables, alongside half-formed shapes out of metal plate that shone dully in the light… a mountain of work that would have taken an ordinary blacksmith from the age of chivalry weeks or months or more. He had to be using his Quirk somehow to speed the process-- though for the life of him Higari couldn’t guess how.

By Monday, Midoriya had an audience.

The usual students had shuffled in, and Power Loader was busy hopping from one student to another checking over their work on their various projects, when he noticed that several of the students were lingering rather frequently around the door to the forge room. It took him another moment to notice they were almost entirely female…

In the manner of teachers everywhere he wandered over behind the small crowd and cleared his throat. The girls “eeped” and suddenly found a reason to be someplace else. When the crowd cleared away, who should be the only one left standing there staring but… Hatsume Mei. She was staring into the forge room, some half-finished gadget dangling forgotten from one hand (and wasn’t that an alarming statement all on its own…!) And--

Was she licking her lips?

He looked over her shoulder. Midoriya was at the anvil again, hammering away at something that was glowing fresh from the forge. He had stripped to the waist under his leather apron-- an unsurprising thing; the air conditioning for this part of the building was crap and the ventilation fans were barely cutting the sweltering heat. Hiragi noted that the boy was far more muscular than his baggy clothes had led him to believe. Hell, he was chiseled, with powerful shoulders and muscle that rippled across his arms and back as he worked. He barely seemed to notice the clouds of sparks bouncing off his skin.

Higari looked at Hatsume, then back at the boy, then back at Hatsume. “Ahem. Getting an eyeful, are we?”

Hatsume didn’t take her eyes off the boy. “Uh huh,” she said.

Higari tried again. “Planning on ‘making babies’ with him, are you?” ---her euphemism for building her new inventions.

The pinkette nodded, her dreadlocks bobbing. “Uh huh,” she said. A rather disturbing smile spread across her face as the boy dropped the blade he was working on into a quenching trough then dumped a bucket of water over his head. Higari got the feeling she was tracking every droplet beading on the boy’s chest with those super-zoom-scope eyes of hers.

“I thought you didn’t care for all this ‘stone age technology’ he seems so obsessed with?”

The smile turned into a leer. “Who said anything about technology?”

Power Loader rolled his eyes. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said. “Go on, SCOOT! Back to your workstation!”

“What? Eep!” She pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You saw nothing!”

“I certainly wish I hadn’t. Go on, he doesn’t need you ogling him while he works. Nobody needs you ogling them, you’re frightening enough as it is.”

She blew a raspberry at him, but she left. Higari banged on the doorframe with one large fist. “Yo, Village Smithy!” he called out. Midoriya looked up from toweling out his hair. “Think you could put your shirt on? You’re giving the girls in my class a free show.” The boy blinked in artless confusion then grabbed his shirt. Higari rolled his eyes. Nobody was THAT innocent, especially at fifteen--!

“So what are you working on...” his words trailed off as he looked to the right and saw. At some point he’d dragged a manikin in here; the manikin was now donned in a full suit of armor. It was half mail and plate, with a barbut helmet, pauldrons, breastplate, gauntlets and greaves, with partial plates on the arms, legs, hips and stomach and overlapping guards on all the joints. The plates were… bolted? Riveted? Was that the correct word?… to a bodysuit of chain mail. The suit held a kite shield on one arm-- no, not a kite shield. It was a Reuleaux triangle, actually. The suit was unadorned, neither engraved nor painted, and it gleamed silver and matte in the light.

“You like it?” the boy asked almost shyly. “It’s not the fanciest, but it’s certainly functional. I decided to make it half-maille… If Mom’s right I’ll be like my Dad and shoot up like a weed. Didn’t want to have to remake it all every single year.”

Higari tapped the breastplate with one metal-tipped finger. The sound of the plate ringing said it was certainly solid enough. “You made this all in four nights??” he said.

Midoriya beamed. “Yeah. But Hatsume was a real big help. She set up the wire extruder and the chainmail machine--” he pointed.

Higari looked. For the first time he realized the sound of machinery was not coming from workshop outside. There were two machines chugging away next to the forge. The first was a fairly bog-standard wire extrusion machine. Granted, it was hooked to a reservoir of molten metal that had a sheen Power Loader could not place, but otherwise fairly normal. It was patiently cranking out gleaming wire, which was being spooled into the second machine.

THIS machine was a chugging mass of levers, gears, and pistons, all churning and dancing in and out between one another as they pulled wire from the other end of the spool and turned it into a seemingly endless tube of maille. Higari stepped closer-- yes, it was welded maille too. “Don’t tell me she built this for you,” he said.

Midoriya blinked. “Oh no,” he said. “She ordered it from some company.”

Higari stared at him. “Seriously?”

Midoriya shrugged and grinned. “Renfaire fanatics are big bucks apparently. Who knew?” He looked up at the tube of maille extending to the ceiling. “Of course she had to beef it up a little to handle the alloys I use…but it still saved me days and days and DAYS of work. I had some metal left over so I’m letting it run dry. I suppose it won’t hurt to have a spare pile of the stuff for repairs or upgrades...”

“Wait. How’d you two pay for this?”

Midoriya stopped in mid stride and looked at him. “She.. said it was covered by the Support Class expense account,” he said, his brow furrowing in concern. “Is that not--?”

Higari sighed. “HATSUME!!” he bellowed. “DID YOU SIGN OFF ON A MAJOR PURCHASE AGAIN WITHOUT MY PERMISSION--”

Loud, rapid clanging of metal on metal echoed through the open door. “Can’t hear you, busy hammering something!” she yelled back.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH A FREAKING CHAIN MAIL FABRICATING MACHINE??”

That actually got a response. The hammering stopped, and the girl stuck her head in the door. She looked at the machine, then up at the tube of chain maille reaching to the ceiling. “Idunno. Make chain maille armor for giraffes?” she grinned and vanished before Power Loader could yell again. He groaned and tried to rub his forehead through his oversized helmet.

“That girl...”

Midoriya was starting to look a little panicky. “This… okay, how bad of trouble are we in?” he cringed.

Power Loader waved him off. “Kid, we let you kids smash up a few hundred hi-tech battle bots for an entrance exam,” he said. “This is incidental expenses.” The kid relaxed a little, but he still looked a little upset about it. “So what’s up with the shield?” He said, trying to distract him with a change of subject. “The shape’s a little unusual...”

That seemed to get his enthusiasm back. “I was just going to make an upgrade of my old shield,” Midoriya said. “But this shape is better balanced for throwing.” He pulled the shield off the manikin and hefted it.

“Throwing?”

Midoriya nodded, and hauled back. The shield took on a faint glowing aura. He threw the shield, discus-style, at the far wall. Hagiri watched as the shield streaked-- far faster than mere muscle power could account for-- to the wall, ricocheted, hit another wall, then ricocheted back to Midoriya, who somehow caught it on his forearm and donned it all in one smooth motion. He looked at Power Loader and smiled. “Throwing. Paladin technique.”

“….Right.” Higari started to remember some of the seemingly impossible tricks he’d seen this kid use his Quirk for in the entrance exam. “So what are you working on now?” he asked as Midoriya hung the shield back on the manikin.

“The final piece.” Midoriya went over to the furnace. He selected a small crucible and tongs, then pulled something out from under his shirt-- a craggy, blue-whitish lump of ore dangling on a thong. He undid the stone from the thong and almost reverently dropped it into the crucible. “This is the last bit of this I have,” he said solemnly. “You… can’t get it around here. Or anywhere, really.” He placed the crucible in the furnace, then returned to the quenching trough.

“What is it?” Higari asked.

“Ghost Iron,” Midoriya said. He took the tongs and pulled a blade out of the water. It was a European style blade, double edged, and was a single piece from tip to pommel. “I’m glad you’re here… This is the finishing step. Not many people, anywhere, know this technique. It feels important that someone witness it.”

He held the tongs in one hand, stripped the glove off his other hand with his teeth, and set his palm on the anvil.

And then Maijima Higari experienced something he hadn’t felt since he was little more than a child: a sense of wonder.

Midoriya’s hand began to glow; a warm, almost molten golden light. The light spread from his hand down into the iron of the anvil, spreading through it till the cold grey metal seemed to shine from within. Midoriya sighed, as if this had drawn something out of him, then set the blade down on the anvil. He moved, swiftly but smoothly, to the forge and drew out the crucible. The ore had melted down; the liquid within glowed with an unsettling, blueish light.

He returned to the anvil. “Sir, I could do this one-handed, but...” he held out the handle of the tongs to Higari.

Surprised, and for some reason humbled, Power Loader took the tongs in his hands, careful to hold the crucible steady. “What do I do?” he asked.

“When I tell you, start pouring the ore down the length of the sword, from pommel to tip,” Midoriya said. He picked up a hammer and a second set of tongs. Gripping the tools, he began to glow again. The light bloomed in his chest, poured down his arms, through the tools and into the blade. When the entire blade was limned in light, he nodded. “Now.”

Carefully, the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration, Higari tipped the crucible. A steady stream of glowing blue metal trickled down onto the pommel. He moved the crucible down, starting rivulets of shining blue coursing down the blade. Higari felt sweat pop out on his skin as much from his focus on keeping the ghost metal flowing smoothly as from the heat. “The alloy that went into the blade already has ghost iron in it,” he heard Midoriya murmur. “This step… activates it, vitalizes it-- I don’t know how else to describe it.”

To Higari’s surprise, the blue metal didn’t just dribble down the blade. It seemed to sink into the metal, dissolving into it… Midoriya turned the blade over; Higari poured more ore over it.

The last drop fell on the very tip of the blade. Higari pulled the crucible away. Midoriya raised his hammer, set his shoulders and struck.

Higari stepped back and watched, enthralled. Fat golden sparks rose, unnaturally luminous and hanging in the air strangely. Then blue sparks joined the golden; then the blue-became blue-white, then more and more of them became a ghostly white. The golden light in the hammer, the tongs, the anvil, the boy, seemed to fade slowly, as if they were being absorbed into the blade. Soon the light was gone, save for a faint, pale white glow that seemed to eminate from the sword.

Midoriya then shocked the fool out of him by picking up the sword with his bare hand. “AAH--” Hagiri cried out in warning.

“No, no, it’s quite cool now, see?” Midoriya said. He held the blade out. Carefully, Higari lowered his hand to it. There was no heat. He patted his palm to the flat of the blade. “Incredible,” he muttered. “You’d never know it had just had sparks flying off it.”

Midoriya took the sword over to a nearby workbench and began binding the handle. The hilt was textured enough for a grip, but a leather wrapping obviously wouldn’t hurt. “What is that, snake skin? Alligator?” Higari asked.

“Uhh, something like that.” Midoriya muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “if alligators had wings and breathed fire, maybe...”

“What?”

“...Nothing.” Midoriya took the sword and held it out, turning it back and forth. “Balance is good,” he said, sounding relieved. Then to Higari’s shock he turned around and brought the blade down on the anvil, edge first.

“-!!” Higari nearly swallowed his tongue. The blade was unharmed. The same could not be said of the anvil. An inch thick slice had been carved off the end of the lump of industrial-grade iron, curling off like a soft slice of cheese. “H-- holy… and you didn’t even sharpen it!”

“Oh, it won’t need sharpening.” Midoriya said confidently.

“I should hope not!” Higari said. He tapped the anvil and flinched back; the metal was still rather hot from its sundering. Midoriya noticed him poking at the damage and grimaced apologetically. “Uhh, incidental expenses?” he said hopefully.

“The boy learns quickly,” Higari grunted. “You’ll be a regular Support Class student in no time.”

Midoriya held the finished sword up, blade pointed at the ceiling. “And now for the final test,” he said, biting his lip. He took a deep breath, raised his free hand-- and brought it palm down onto the point of the blade! “AAAH!”

“BOY!” Power Loader lunged, grabbing for the boy’s wrist-- and, booby-like, grabbed the blade with his other hand. “AAAH!” He felt white-hot, icy-cold burning as the blade sliced through his fingers. Everything from his wrist down went numb with shock. He released his grip and stumbled back, cradling his ruined hand in the other, oh gods, his fingers, his hand--

It took him a second to realize there was no blood. It took him another to realize that all his precious fingers were still attached.

“Sensei!!” Midoriya shouted. “Are you hurt?”

Power Loader held up his limp, nerveless hand. It was numb, and flopped uselessly at the wrist… but he could feel sensation returning slowly, pins and needles style. “What the hell??”

Midoriya laughed in relief and held up his own limp hand. “It’s a Ghost Blade,” he said. “It will cut through just about anything-- but it only passes through living flesh, intangibly. Burns like heck though and it leaves the spot numb for several minutes.”

Higari flopped his hand around, trying to shake feeling back into it. “That--- amazing! Impossible!” He glared at the boy. “And you decided to test it out by skewering your hand on the blade??”

Midoriya laughed. A golden glow spread up his numbed hand; he flexed it and wiggled his fingers. “I’m a healer too, remember? And I figured it was better to test it on myself than on someone else after all. Here.” He grabbed Higari’s wrist. The golden glow spread up Power Loader’s fingers; the numbness, then the pins and needles surged for a second and then disappeared. The Pro Hero wiggled his fingers, relieved.

“Can you make more blades like that?” he said. His mind was already turning over with possibilities.

Midoriya’s face fell. “No,” he said. “That little bit of ore was the last. I got it from the workshop; they said it was incredibly rare, and they had no idea when they’d get more. If ever.”

And they gave it to this boy? Higari wondered. He gave a mental shrug and dismissed it. It wouldn’t be the most eccentric thing he’d heard of Support heroes or companies doing. But he really was going to have to track down this Azeroth Ltd…

Midoriya held the sword up. “You know, I was originally going to name you ‘Plus Ultra,’ after the school motto,” he said to the blade. “But now, standing here holding you--- that name’s all wrong. That name’s not for what you’re made for, or what you are. I have a better one.”

He held the blade over his head. “I dub thee ‘MERCY.’” It may have been Higari’s imagination, but the faint glimmer off the blade seemed to brighten momentarily in response to its name. Midoriya picked up a sword belt-- made of more of that ‘alligator skin’-- off the worktable and sheathed it. He buckled the belt around his waist, shifting it to settle the weight.

Higari shook his head, blinking. The moment the sword had been sheathed and the light had disappeared it was as if a certain… breathlessness… in the air had been lifted. “So, what next?” he asked, half-joking. “Going to build yourself a loyal steed?”

Midoriya gave him an awkward smile. “Uh… no, of course not. Not yet.”  
Wait. ….’Yet’?

Midoriya took his apron off, hung it up and threw the strap of his haversack over his shoulder. He lifted the flap on the bag and pointed a finger at the suit of armor. “STORE!”

Higari gawked as the suit of armor, shield and all, flew off the manikin in a cloud of sparks and disappeared into the bag. “Perfect!” Midoriya said. “Now---” he held his arms out and stood with his feet spread. “EQUIP!”

The same cloud of sparks flew out of the bag and swirled around him. When they cleared Midoriya was wearing his suit of armor, sword on his hip, shield on his arm. “Ouch,” he said, wincing painfully. “I forgot I haven’t got the cloth undersuit made yet. This is seriously-- ouch!-- pinching some hairs in sensitive pla—Oww! Okay okay, UNEQUIP!” The armor disappeared again, this time taking the sword with it. Midoriya rubbed his chest and winced. “Well, I was starting to grow a couple of chest hairs...”

“Okay, ANYTHING else? Seriously.” Power Loader said.

The kid blushed a bit and scratched his hair. “There is… well, I have to wait for the chain maille machine to stop anyway,” he said, jerking his thumb at the K-CHUNK-ing machine. “So if it’s okay I’ll just use one of the workbenches in here for a little while more?”

Higari nodded, his own head awhirl with all he’d seen. “Just sweep up, set the forge on cooldown and let me know before you leave.” Midoriya nodded and hustled back to the workbench. He pulled up a stool and pulled an ornate wooden box trimmed in brass out of his haversack. While Higari watched the boy pulled out several… jeweler’s tools??… and laid them out reverently on the table. He then pulled a couple of small ingots out of his bag and trotted over to the forge, to fill another crucible and stick it in the fire. Then it was back to the bench where he pulled out several small jewels…

“Did you get ALL of this stuff at that-- place?” Power Loader said. Izuku nodded absently as he put in a jeweler’s loupe and started scrutinizing the stones. Okay, that did it. “Kid, you got their card or something? I think I need to pay them a visit.”

Midoriya looked up. “Uhh… yeah, okay,” he said. He fished around in his haversack and pulled out a manila card, identical to the one he’d had before.

Higari took it and looked at it. Ugh. There was that blurriness again, his eyes were seriously tired. He rubbed them. The Lost Workshop, Azeroth Ltd., etc etc… address… address…

He frowned. What was he looking for again? Meh. Wasn’t important. He stuck the card in his pocket and forgot about it. “So what’s this for, then…?”

The boy actually blushed. “Uh. A gift actually. For a friend.” He carefully picked a gemstone, placed it in a clamp and began chipping away at it.

* * *

  
“Uraraka-san! Wait up!” Ochako paused on the front steps of the U.A. entrance. Izuku came running up behind her. “Thank goodness, I was worried you’d already left for the day...”

“What is it? Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Oh no, no no,” he said, waving it off. “I.. just have something for you.” He bit his lip, suddenly shy.

Ochako brushed her hair out of her face. “Oh? What is it?”

By way of response, Izuku reached into his ever-present haversack and pulled out a jewelry box. Ochako’s eyes bugged out. WHAT…

As chance would have it, several of the girls from class were passing by at that precise moment. Ashido, being Ashido, got one look at the little velvet box in Midoriya’s hands, clapped her hands to her cheeks and let out a shriek that would have knocked birds from the sky. “OMIGAWSH! AIIIEEK!”

That drew the attention of the other girls. They saw the open box and clustered around, chattering and flapping like magpies.

“I knew it!”

“The hero and his maiden fair--”

“But they’re so YOUNG--”

“Carpe diem, Ochako--”

“ENGAGED? OH. EM. GEE!”

“KERO??”

Both Izuku and Ochako were as red as tomatoes. “IT’S NOT THAT KIND OF RING!!” Izuku finally screamed frantically. The girls fell silent… with a couple of disappointed ‘aww’s. “We’re not even DATING, come on-- I mean, not that I wouldn’t want to if you were willing to,” he babbled to Ochako, getting somehow even redder. “I mean it’s just been the first few days of school and--”

“Oh no we’re not even dating even though that would be nice I mean I’m not saying anything FOR you but really I--” Ochako babbled right back.

A froggy hand slapped over each of their mouths. “We get it,” Tsuyu said, giving them an enigmatic frog-ish look. “So what’s the ring for?” She took her hand off Izuku’s mouth.

“It’s for her Quirk,” Izuku said briefly. He thought it over. “Well, not exactly for her Quirk, but more like--” the hand raised again. “Okay okay okay! Maybe it’d be easier to just show you…?” he looked at Ochako. Ochako (still muffled by Tsuyu’s long fingers) nodded. Tsuyu released her.

Silently Izuku opened the box. The girls, Ochako included, couldn’t help cooing. It was a lovely silver ring, plain except for some tiny, multicolored gem chips embedded in the band. Izuku took Ochako’s hand and slipped it over the middle finger of her right hand. “It doesn’t matter which hand or finger you wear it on,” he said. “They're, um, one size fits all."

That the ring seemed to subtly change size as she slipped it on, he didn't draw attention to.

Ochako held her hand out, admiring it. “It’s so pretty,” she sighed, cheeks pink.

  
Izuku knelt down… and laced his fingers together. “Foot?” he said. Puzzled, Ochako slipped her foot into the stirrup he’d made of his hands and rested her hands on his shoulders. He stood up, lifting her up off the ground-- goodness he was strong for his size!-- and gave her a moment to get her balance.

“Ready? One, two...” He heaved, and tossed her into the air!

“EEK!” She wasn’t wrong when she thought he was strong; she went nearly four meters straight up. She shrieked as she started to plummet-- then suddenly she wasn’t. She floated down and landed gently on the ground. She gaped at the ring then at him. He was beaming ear to ear.

“Ring of Feather Fall,” he said. “Its manufacture is, ah, an extra that my sponsors picked up from another traditional discipline related to… uh never mind. It’s just that you said that making yourself weightless makes you nauseous, I figured this would come in handy if you were ever high up and your power cut out or… whatever...” he shrugged, face turning red again. “It might at least make it easier to use your Quirk--”

It is very untraditional in Japan to indulge in public displays of affection. But then again Ochako was definitely not a traditional type of girl. She gave Izuku a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Thank you, Izuku-kun,” she said into his flaming ear. “It’s a wonderful gift.”

While Izuku stammered, Momo Yaorozu sighed. “I wish I knew where to find this Workshop of yours that has such marvelous things!”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Jirou said.

“Kero, definitely,” Tsuyu said. “The Support options available around here are… kind of limited.”

“Indeed,” Momo said. “Oh they do good work-- but… they hit a threshold pretty hard...”

Izuku (through the pulse pounding in his ears) heard what they were saying. He recalled the handful of manila business cards still down in his haversack.

“Well, actually--”


	3. Chapter 3

“All right then,” All Might said, beaming at class 1-A. “Let’s begin this combat class with…” he fished around in the box and withdrew two balls. “Mineta Minoru and Bakugao Katsuki as team Hero--”

“Seriously?” someone shouted.

“Vs. Midoriya Izuku and Hagakure Toru as Team Villain!” The armor clad junior hero and the invisible girl stepped forward. Or so one assumed, as all that could be seen of her was a pair of gloves and shoes…

* * *

The “battle” was simple. The ‘villains’ had to hide an enormous (thankfully fake) bomb somewhere in the building and protect it from the heroes till time ran out. The Heroes either had to capture the bomb by touching it, or capture the villains by subduing them and wrapping them in specially marked ‘capture tape.’ The villains were given a five minute head start.

Izuku and Toru had made the best use they could of the time by moving the bomb to the top floor, barricading as many doors and halls as they could with toppled furniture… and beyond that, they were stumped. Despite all his powers as a Paladin, Izuku was realizing that they were fairly straightforward-- find the evil and smite it. Subterfuge wasn’t exactly in a Paladin’s wheelhouse. And as for Toru…

“You can’t turn the bomb invisible, maybe?” Izuku said hopefully.

“No!” Toru hissed next to his ear. He jumped; the girl had shucked her gloves and shoes, and he couldn’t tell where she was. “The only thing my Quirk turns invisible is ME. If it isn’t a part of me, my invisibility field won’t extend over it.”

“Well, there goes that...idea...” Izuku rolled those last couple of sentences over in his mind. “Wait,” he said. “you don’t have any gear that your Quirk will… not even...” His eyes went round and he suddenly became VERY aware of the body heat of someone standing FAR too close. “YOU MEAN YOU’RE NAKED??”

* * *

Mineta stood in front of the entrance, arms akimbo, feet set and standing tall as a three foot tall dude could manage. This was it, his chance to prove himself as a UA student hero. “Okay,” he said. “So we gotta work together on this. What’s the plan, Kacchan?”

“Heroes, GO!” All Might shouted.

“The plan is you stay the @$#% out of my way,” Bakugao growled. The moment they were inside he picked the runty kid up by the front of his costume and pinned him against the wall. With four quick yanks he pulled four sticky balls off Mineta’s head-- “OW! OW! OW! OW!” --and stuck the boy to the wall by the back of his costume several feet off the ground. He looked at his hands and flicked his fingertips a couple of times. “Heh, I thought I was gonna have to blast those off,” Bakugao said. “Guess they don’t stick to glycerin, ‘nitro’ or otherwise. Later, Grape Turd.” He disappeared into the building, a murderous gleam in his eyes.

“And don’t call me Kacchan, dillweed!”

* * *

Izuku didn’t even hesitate. He hit his earpiece. “All Might, we forfeit this match!--”

“What??” Toru screeched in his ear. “NO WE DO NOT!”

“Hagukare-kun, you are unarmed, unarmored, you don’t even have SHOES. You could shred your feet to a bloody mess just walking around this dump--”

“I KNOW all that, you think I--” the invisible girl seethed.

“I’m not going to risk you getting hurt--”

“You wannabe noble idiot!” she yelled. “I’m a hero student just like you-- I REFUSE TO FORFEIT!” she shouted to the air.

“ _I’m sorry, young Izuku, you can only forfeit if both of you agree,”_ All Might said over the earbuds.

Izuku glared at the girl, or approximately where he thought she was, then up at the ceiling where the internal cameras most likely were. “Fine,” he said. “Change of plans. You stay here Toru. I’m going to go stop Bakugao.”

“What about Mineta?”

“He’s a lot less likely to do you terrible injury,” Izuku said. “Kacchan’s the one to stop.”

Toru’s voice got rather sarcastic. “Right. Leave the naked girl to deal with the raging pervert.”

“Just tell him you’re not wearing panties,” Izuku said in all seriousness as he drew his sword. “He’ll probably pass out from the nosebleed.” His sword flamed with light; with a single swipe he cut through the floor right under his own armored feet. He plummeted out of sight.

“...Great,” Toru said to herself.

* * *

Izuku hit the floor below. He was in a central corridor, branching in every direction. He spun in a circle, looking for signs of Kacchan. Nothing. “KACCHAAAN!” he yelled. He heard an answering bellow from floors below.

He cut out the floor underneath himself again. Fell through to the floor below. Repeated the performance. Kacchan’s roaring profanity was closer. He did it again.

Izuku knew Kacchan better than he knew anyone else. Whether Kacchan wanted to admit it or not, he saw Izuku as a rival-- someone to beat, a minor boss to surpass early on in his climb to greatness. To do that he had to defeat Izuku, drive him into the ground never to rise again so that Kacchan could step over him, prove Izuku to be the “worthless Deku” Kacchan had always said he was. In short he’d pass up anything and everything just for a chance to beat Izuku to a pulp.

If Kacchan got up to the floor Toru was on and started throwing his blasts around, he’d probably kill the invisible girl without ever realizing it. So Izuku was going to meet him halfway. Izuku had to stop his “childhood friend,” and stop him hard.

He crashed through another floor, concrete dust and plaster raining around him. This one was an open office floor, littered with cubicles. He saw a figure standing on the far end of the room near the stairwell. “KACCHAAAN!”

“DEKU! I’LL FRIGGIN KILL YOU!”

Bingo.

Both of them charged.

The building shook.

* * *

Toru resisted the urge to kick the ridiculous looking “atomic bomb” she was supposed to be guarding. She’d never seen anything look so fake. She could smell the paper mache’ from here… then again, if she were a villain she would probably want to make the bomb look as fake as possible. Or disguise it as something else entirely. Or make it look like an almost-real-looking bomb, like they’d use in the movies, only obviously fake underneath, but a real bomb even further down.

She kind of suspected sometimes that being completely invisible all her life had conditioned her to think in really odd ways.

The building was constructed frighteningly well for something used for battle testing. At least it was holding up well to having a kid with exploding sweat running around in it while a dummy with a sword slashed holes through the floors--

The building trembled. She actually stumbled a bit. Earthquake?-- No. Bakugao. She could hear shouting and the clash of weapons and yes, explosions echoing up from four floors below through the hole Kacchan had cut in the floor.

Those testosterone laden idiots were going to bring the building down. --And speaking of hormone laden idiots, where was Mineta?

* * *

“Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety nine bottles of beer...” Mineta sang dolefully. “My life sucks...”

* * *

Before Toru could decide what to do, there was an explosion-- then a hair raising scream. The battle site fell silent for an ominous minute. Then the klaxon sounded. “Villain Team wins!” All Might announced.

“What--” Toru went to one of the windows and looked out. Izuku was striding out of the entrance to the building. His armor was scorched and blackened with soot in half a dozen places, and he was limping painfully. But he had both Heroes. He was carrying a glum Mineta under one arm, wrists tied together with capture tape, and had Bakugao draped over one shoulder. The exploding teen was swearing a blue streak and making threats against Izuku and his progeny that would make a vengeance spirit blanch. Izuku dumped him in the dirt; Bakugao’s arms and legs flopped bonelessly and his swearing redoubled.

“Could somebody please come help me?” Izuku called out. “It seems I’m stuck to Mineta by his hairballs.”

* * *

“Kacchan apparently forgot about my sword’s properties,” Izuku said. “He kept trying to close with me and blast me point-blank… maybe he thought he could overwhelm my armor that way… and I’d get in a strike against an arm or leg-- a couple of quick jabs and his limbs were too numbed for him to dodge when I ran him through.” Several of the students cringed at the seemingly gruesome sword-blow. “Paralyzed him from the shoulders down. He’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

Kacchan’s contribution was a heartfelt profanity. Pins and needles through your entire body HURT.

“I found Mineta stuck to an inside wall, taped him--” Izuku shrugged. “And that was that.”

“So,” All Might said to the class. “We need to figure out who was MVP in this little scenario. Anyone?”

“Geez, obviously Izuku,” Kirishima said. “He took down both heroes singlehanded--”

Yaoyoruzu spoke up. “I have to disagree. Emphatically.” The others turned to her. She sighed and looked regretful, but plowed onward. “Truthfully, noone looked good in this. Both Bakugao and Midoriya sidelined their partners-- Bakugao out of arrogance, Midoriya out of misplaced chivalry. Mineta had no provision handy to free himself from his own Quirk, and in this battlefield… I’m sorry, Toru-kun… but Hagakure’s abilities were… less than useful.”

All Might sighed, but withheld judgment. “Bakugao, Midoriya, do you care to explain your actions?”

Bakugao snorted from where he lay. “I put GrapeTard out of the way because he’s as useless as a windshield wiper on a goat’s butt,” he said bluntly. “And I went for Deku because he was the closest thing to an actual obstacle. See-Thru girl wouldn’t have even slowed me down.” Mineta was sitting over on a bench in the observation room, looking depressed. Bakugao’s words only seemed to make him sink lower. Toru had re-donned her shoes and gloves, so people could tell where she was. But she wasn’t giving any clues to her mood.

“And you, young Midoriya?”

Midoriya doffed his helmet. There was soot smeared over his face, and a dried trickle of blood from his nose and another from a cut on his scalp. His soft boyish face looked unsuited for the regret-filled expression on it. But he stood straight. “Sir, it was only after the exercise started that I learned my partner was… grievously unequipped,” he said.

“I knew Kacchan was going to come in guns blazing, and I knew he was going to come straight for me. So I did what I had to do to remove the danger to my partner.” He wiped his nose and looked stubborn. “I went out to meet him, in order to keep all the mayhem as far away from Toru as I could get it.”

All Might put his hand to his chin, brooding. “I will admit your motives were more honorable than Bakugao’s own, young Midoriya,” he said. “But you both need to respect the capabilities of your fellow heroes more--”

“But sir!” Izuku protested. “She has no weapons, no tools, no support gear, no protective gear-- sir, she doesn’t even have any actual costume or even footwear! She’s more vulnerable than someone running around in a body stocking! She’s utterly defenseless--”

Toru’s gloved hand came around in an arc and struck his cheek with a resounding slap. Izuku stood there, stunned. She stood in front of him, her fists doubled up. “how DARE you!” she shrilled. “How dare you! I went through the practical admissions same as you did, Midoriya! I earned enough points to be in the top twenty! Was I helpless then??” Tears started trickling down her face, a most unusual sight. “I’m just as worthy to be a hero as YOU are, Midoriya Izuku! Even if I don’t have a fabulous glowy Quirk or a magic bag or a suit of magical indestructible armor! And don’t you forget it!

“--- jerk!” she stormed out of the room and out of the building before anyone could hear her burst into tears.

There was an awkward silence. “Wait. Holy crap. You mean there was a NAKED GIRL right here and I didn’t even know it?” Mineta yelped. “Oh, the karmic irony--!” There was a ringing slap as Tsuyu nailed him across the cheek.

* * *

Half an hour later, with All Might’s leave, Izuku went after her.

Izuku found her down by the creek. For whatever reason the faux-city had waterways; who knew. She had shucked her gloves and shoes and run off through the grass to the shore. He could hear her still sniffling as he sat down next to her. “Hello,” he said.

The sniffling paused. “How did you find me?”

He pointed. “Butt print in the grass.”

She sniffled and laughed humorlessly. “Guess I’m not even very good at just being invisible.” Izuku held out a handkerchief; she took it and blew. “Thank you.”

“Here,” he said, pulling off his red cape and handing it to her. “It’s kind of chilly out, and-- er, well--” he shrugged awkwardly.

“Thank you.” she took the cape, wrapped it around her shoulders and sat back down. Singed and tattered on the edges or not, she had to admit it was more comfortable than cold, wet grass. She looked like a sad, little red ghost that way, Izuku couldn’t help thinking.

“Toru-kun, I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to imply you weren’t worthy to be a hero. You definitely held your own. I was just so upset that the Support people didn’t do a thing for you--”

“What could they do?” Toru said. “You were right, Izuku-san. I really am that vulnerable. And my power is so _limited._ ”

Izuku pursed his lip. “Toru-san, I have something for you,” he said, fishing in his haversack. He pulled out a manila card and held it out to her. “These people might be able to help you.”

Toru looked at the card. Ink seemed to swirl across the card forming numbers, letters and kanji. “The… Lost Workshop?” she said.

He nodded seriously. “I can’t begin to tell you how much they helped ME out,” he said. “They’re sure to have something.”

She got to her feet, still looking at the card. She started to hand the cape back to him. “Uh, keep it,” he said, blushing. Invisible or not a girl had just casually started to disrobe in front of him. “It’s a long walk back to the lockers.”

She smiled and, because she knew he couldn’t see it, said “thank you” and walked off, the cape wrapped around her.

After a few minutes Izuku got to his feet. It was going to be a long afternoon polishing his armor and getting all the soot off. He headed back to the building where the observation room was in when he saw Mineta standing outside the door. He was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets and looking bummed. Oh, right. Toru wasn’t the only one who’d gotten called “useless” in front of the entire class by their partner, was she?

“Hey, Mineta-san,” he said, pulling out a manila business card. “Got a tip for you...”

* * *

The bell on the door jingled. Toru stepped inside, peering about. She was instantly entranced. It was like an elf’s workshop in here… trinkets and toys, jewelry and odd bits of clothing, books and baubles, oddments hanging from the shelves and suspended from the ceiling. To think that such a fascinating little shop was just a block or so from her own neighborhood!

There was an african girl tending the register. She was a fairly buxom thing for how young she looked, and she dressed in a rather shocking fashion… a layered look, though all the layers look as if she’d thrown something on and almost missed. American, maybe? Her dark curly hair was done up in two enormous pom poms on either side of her head, and she was wearing large dark sunglasses. She was busy fussing with her cell phone and didn’t pay her any heed at first. She did give Toru a double take a moment later. One does that when an empty halter top and shorts walks into the room.

“Heyyy, new customer, ah?” She flashed Toru an enormous grin and pushed her sunglasses up, revealing eyes that were an uncanny yellow, almost like a bird’s. Her eyes tracked up and down Toru’s frame and Toru got the immediate and disturbing impression _that the girl could actually see her._ “Heyy, Welcome to the Lost Workshop! This is the World of Crafts, my name is Aisha, what can I do you for?”

Toru hesitated at the boisterous greeting. Definitely American. “Ah, Aisha-sama--”

“Ah ah ah.” Aisha held up a finger and wagged it. “You can drop the sama, san, kun, chun, bullshit here. This nigga ain’t got no time for all that. Ai-sha. And that’s it. Kay?”

Toru’s mouth flopped open and closed. She’d never been so glad her face was invisible. “Hai…. Aisha.”

“Great!” The beaming smile returned. “Now, as I was saying---what can I do for you?”

Toru held out a small, carefully folded bundle of red cloth. “This was loaned to me by a friend,” she said. “He--”

“Here, girl, gimme.” Aisha plucked the bundle from her hands and shook it out. “Hmm. Nice cape, looks like Shar’Din’s work all right,” she said. “You lookin’ for a patch job or a replacement?”

“I… I was hoping to get it repaired, since I was here,” Toru said. “You see, I...”

“Okay great great great,” Aisha said, waving her off. “Will you be paying in cash, debit, credit or barter? And if it’s cash, it’d better be American.”

“I have a few thousand yen--” this was getting very exasperating and annoying.

“Yen??” The girl made a face of mock horror. “In HERE?”

“Aisha, quit trying to culture shock the customers,” a deep resonant voice said. From the back of the store a tall black gentleman came out. He was dressed to the nines in a fine three-piece suit, a blood red tie as straight as a knife’s edge, and midnight black shoes. He had on stylish shades (possibly hiding eyes like the girl? Were they relatives?) and his hair was in thin neat cornrows. He was devastatingly handsome. She might have been more startled by the wisps of inky black smoke that seemed to roll off him here and there, but this WAS the age of Quirks...

He gave Toru a charming smile. “I apologize for my sister,” he said in flawless Japanese. “She takes delight in shocking people. I am Brian Laborne, one of the owners of this, ah, franchise. How may we be of service?”

Wordlessly Toru gestured to the cape. “Ah, looking for a little repair work I see,” he said. He looked directly at her; again she got the disturbing feeling that her invisibility meant nothing. “For yourself or another?”

“A friend,” she stammered. “He loaned it to me...”

“Ah well,” he said with a knowing look. “Perhaps you’ll find something for yourself while you’re here as well? Aisha--”

“I’ll let Shar’Din know she’s on the way, right,” Aisha said. She rolled her eyes before hiding them behind her sunglasses. To Toru’s everlasting shock, the girl then took a deep breath, then coughed up a ball of black feathers. It hit the counter and unfolded into a full-sized black crow. The bird hopped about on the counter and peered about with very familiar looking yellow eyes; then it leapt into the air and flew out an open vent in the ceiling. “Message delivered,” she said to her brother.

Laborn the elder merely groaned and shook his head. Aisha looked over at Toru and grinned. “You should see what happens when you pull my finger--”

“Aisha!”

“Okay okay okay,” Aisha muttered. “You no fun no more.”

Brian took what was obviously a long, cleansing breath. “May I escort you to Shar’Din’s shop?” he said. “You’re in luck, by the way. His associate Parian is here today. Between them they can work marvels.” He smiled and held out his hand. Bemused, Toru took it. He led her to a door she hadn’t noticed before in the back of the store and led her through.

The little shop had been a marvel; this was a wonder. She gawked, her head on a swivel. They were in an enormous roofed-in area with park benches, decorative ferns, and a lovely fountain bubbling and splashing away in the center. Museum style, glassed in displays were everywhere, as were stairways, hallways, doorways, even one or two ladders leading off in every direction. “This way, please,” Mr. Laborne said, gesturing to a curving flight of stairs.

When they reached the top they found themselves at an ornately carved oak door. It looked like something out of a fantasy movie, Toru thought. Then Mr. Laborne opened the door for her and she reassessed that. It was right out of a fantasy _world._

Inside was a high-ceiling room filled to bursting with… stuff. Manikins wearing dresses, suits, Hero outfits, costumes from some sort of psychedelic renfaire. Bolts of cloth in every color, texture, pattern, and material she could imagine and several that she couldn’t. There was a loom in one corner, a spinning wheel in another, and both were going at breakneck speeds with no hand on them.

What wasn’t taken up with a dressmaker’s acid dream was filled with a wizard’s workshop. Racks of vials with vividly colored substances. Beakers and tubes, burners and vials. Chalkboards with indecipherable formulas and diagrams on them in a plethora of colors. Things that floated or hovered or sang faintly like rubbing one’s finger along the rim of a champagne glass. Books flapping from bookshelf to bookshelf like wayward birds. A spiral staircase hinted at more eye-popping marvels hidden away above and below.

Standing next to a cloth cutting table was.. an elf. It was true. An elf! He was tall and thin, with a sharp hawkish nose and high cheekbones and sharply arched eyebrows...and long pointed ears, of course. His hair was golden blonde and hung behind him in a ponytail that trailed to the floor. He was dressed in fabulous robes of blood red and midnight blue, trimmed in gold. He was talking to the crow she’d seen the girl in the shoppe send up the ventilation shaft… and it looked like the crow was talking back.

Not in Kansas anymore my transparent ass, Toru thought to herself. This place left Oz in the dust.

The elf looked over-- his almond-shaped eyes were a burning green, Toru realized-- and clapped his long slender hands together. “There you are! Baladash, Belanor! Welcome to my shop!” He gave Toru and grandiose, sweeping bow, then stood up. “Aha, I see what you mean about her being a challenge, Aisha!” he said over his shoulder to the crow. The bird cawed, then flapped off, disappearing up an airshaft. “Oh, I’ve got to get Parian in on this one--”

Brian Laborne chuckled. “Easy, don’t scare her off!” He looked at Toru. “Miss Hagakure, I will leave you in Shar’Din’s capable hands.” He disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Shar’Din waved his hands about, dispelling the wisps of inky black. “He KNOWS I hate it when he does that in here--! Meh.” He folded his hands together and regarded Toru. “Now, what can we do for YOU, hmm..?”

Wordlessly Toru held out the cape. Shar’Din took it and shook it out. “Hmm. Looks like the one that Midoriya boy bought...”

“He loaned it to me,” she said.

He poked a finger through a hole in it. “And what has he been doing with it??”

“Combat trials at U.A.,” she said meekly. “One of the other students blew him up.” Shar’Din’s arched eyebrows rose. “Several times.” His eyebrows nearly vanished over the top of his head.

“Good grief,” he muttered. “Well, definitely a patchup job, though I’m tempted to just do a trade-in… the enchantments definitely need an upgrade by now, and the durability of the cloth-- hmm...” he tossed it in the air. It hung there, unfolded and billowing slowly. Needles trailing crimson thread leapt up from the table and went to work; scissors fluttered about like silver birds. “We’ll leave that to that,” he said, walking away from the worktable. “OH PARIAN!” he shouted up the spiral staircase. “WE’VE GOT AN INTERESTING ONE!”

“Oh really?” A most intriguing figure descended the stairs. It was feminine, and it was wrapped head to to in yard after yard of silken cloth in soft shades of blue, violet and indigo. Every inch of her was covered in loose layers of the cloth save for a white domino mask. Streamers of material trailed off her hips and shoulders and arms, swirling around her almost as if they were alive. She looked like a cross between a mummy and the dance of the seven veils, and she moved with grace and poise that made envy eat at Toru’s heart.

Parian stepped off the stairwell onto the floor and looked over at Toru. “Oh, my, I see what you mean,” she said. “what a most fascinating challenge for a fashion designer...” she circled the girl, silken scarves swirling.

Shar’Din made a muted sound of agreement, tapping his chin. “The problem is, like, any typical outfit will draw attention DOWN, away from her face-- or well, where her face would be--”

“Emphasizing more focus on the clothes than on the girl wearing them,” Parian said. “The exact opposite of what should be--”

“Wait, wait,” Toru said, holding up her gloved hands. “There’s been a misunderstanding here. I’m not-- not looking for a wardrobe.” She paused and wrung her hands together. “I’m a Hero Class student at U.A. wanted to get the cape patched as a favor to my friend Midoriya, but-- h-he told me this place could… help me find some support gear?”

The two fantastic fashionistas gave each other knowing looks. “Ohhhh,” they both said. They nodded to each other and to the girl. “Well, now that helps a lot. But still, this really is the right place for you to go,” Parian said.

They led her to a stool and had her take a seat. “Just wait and see what we CAN do for you before you decide,” Shar’Din said confidently.

“There is the issue of payment,” Parian reminded him.

“Ah yes..”

“I-- I only have a few thousand yen on me...”

Shar’din’s emerald eyes glowed brighter as he gave her a sidelong look. “Would trade in kind work for you?”

Toru shrank back. “What do you want?”

“Five… no, seven feet of your hair,” Shar’Din said decisively.

“But… but my hair only comes to my shoulders!” Toru protested.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Parian said. “Shar’Din, get the hair stuff.”

Shar’Din hustled over to a row of wooden trunks along the wall. “Which one? The Smurf one?”

Parian was busy over at the opposite shelf. “Pfah. That one makes you grow a beard!”

“Yeah, but it comes off clean with a chili bean--”

“If you don’t mind facial burns. And burnt hair...”

“The dragons’ whisker?”

“Genma stole the last bottle and replaced it with mouthwash.”

“Dammit! Wait, we still got the peanut butter solution--”

“I dunno--”

“It's either that or the cat sweat tonic.”

There was a long pause. “Peanut butter it is. Just be sure and THIN IT DOWN, Shar’Din.” She picked up the receiver on an old fashioned, french style phone. “Shen? Send us up a couple gallons of yogurt. Yes, a couple gallons.” She looked over at Toru. “I hope you like strawberry...”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Toru Hagakure found herself digging her way to the bottom of a gallon tub of yogurt with a spoon while the two designers slowly braided her rapidly growing hair into a rope behind her. “Five…. Five and a half…. Six… good, good, it’s slowing down… six foot three… six foot six… six foot eight… seven exactly!” There was a snip of shears and her hair fell back down to her shoulders. She turned around in her seat. Shar’Din was spooling the rope of her hair on his arm. Already the invisibility was fading.

“Well, how about that, dear?” Parian said. “You’re a platinum blonde, it seems.”

“Not exactly,” Shar’Din said, peering at the cut end of the braid. “Actually, it seems more translucent, with a sort of faint rainbow shimmer… almost like--”

“Like Demiguise hair!” Parian clapped her hands. “Or close enough to it to conduct an invisibility aura...”

“Or any number of morphic resonance field effects,” Shar’Din said. “Yes, this will cover the whole shebang.”

Parian summoned a measuring tape-- literally summoned; it swam through the air to her like an eel and coiled around her wrist. “Okay, dear, finished your yogurt? Good, now we need to take your measurements, step behind the folding curtain and… oh well never mind,” she trailed off as Toru skinned out of her clothes on the spot. “Not exactly body conscious, are we?”

“Not much point to it,” Toru said, gesturing with her gloves to indicate a fatalistic shrug.

Shar’Din had begun going through the rolls of cloth all about the room. “Hmm, decisions, decisions. Do we use cloth that turns invisible, whip up some that her powers turn invisible, or just use the cloth that’s invisible anyway?”

“You have all that?” Toru asked, standing with her arms outstretched to her sides.

“You’d be surprised at how many variations there are on invisibility out there,” Parian said as she measured the girl’s waist. “There’s three basic ways to make something invisible you see. Make light pass through it, make light go around it, or make it LOOK like light is passing through it-- camouflage, like a chameleon, basically. All of them have difficulties, all of them have drawbacks. Beyond the basic drawbacks of invisibility, that is.

“Basic Drawbacks?”

“Like people being able to see you because you just ate lunch. Or because rain, or dust, or sweat just collected on your skin. Or people NOT being able to see you and hitting you with a car. Having to run around naked. Or being blind because light passes THROUGH your eyes. That sort of thing.”

“...Yeah.”

“And then there’s the fact you’re generally still visible to infrared cameras, or thermal detectors… and every dog on the planet can hear and smell you. Then it’s ‘naked person versus angry doberman.’ Bad day all around.” Shar’Din shook his head. “Plain old invisibility is just more trouble than it’s worth.”

Toru felt her spirits wilting. “I thought you were going to help me--”

“And we are, darling,” Parian said. She finished her measurements, jotted them down with a grease pen on a piece of paper, and gave Toru a wink. “The trick is, we have to make you MORE than merely invisible.” She reached over and tipped the girl’s chin up. “We have to make you a VISION.”

“What does that mean…?” Toru said. The mysterious woman in veils only chuckled.

“Let’s begin with the beginning,” Shar’ Din said. “She needs a uniform. Invisible cloth #5, the one-sided stuff.” He lifted something off the rack of cloth rolls and hefted… nothing? In the air. Then he turned it around--- and it was a fold of silvery-white cloth over his arm.

“Skintight? Or cloak and cowl?”

“Why not both? Then she can---” he put the cloth over his shoulders, cape style, and swooped dramatically over to one of the manikins. He threw his arm around in front of the manikin-- and it disappeared.

Parian snapped her fingers. “And I know just the cloak! He’s been pouting for a new lining…”

Wait. What?

But the two were already off in a whirl. Parian raised her hands. Scissors flew, cloth swirled through the air, needles danced. “Remember, two kinds, summer and winter!” Shar’Din told her. He turned back to the table. “And of course, now for the other half of your wardrobe...”

“O-o-other half?”

He took her by the gloved hand and lifted her up off her seat as if he were inviting her to a dance. “Of course!” he said. “You need something more than just a few pocket tricks to make your invisibility more useful, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. He leaned forward and stared her in the eye. Again, somehow she felt he actually saw her. “You are a young, pretty girl, who wants to be looked at and admired and for cute boys to think you’re beautiful and want to kiss you. And your whole life literally noone has ever so much as looked at your face. A wall flower without even trying. ”

She felt her cheeks burn. It was true. Enough to make her heart hurt sometimes.

“Well. That’s where we excel. We don’t just make clothes--- fabulous though they are---” he preened a moment. “We. Are going. To make them see YOU. Stand here please.”

He ran over to another rack of cloth. “Vivid colors… no! Pastels? Near whites… no no no...” He stopped and mulled it over. “It has to say ‘I am not just a hollow suit of clothes. I am not just invisible, I am GIRL.’” But….”

Parian paused at the same moment. “Translucent silks!” they said together. Shar’Din went back to gleefully digging through his cloth samples. “Yes yes--and that stuff with the sort of soap-bubble, rainbow sheen?”

“Oh yes,” Parian said, resuming her cloth-kinetic magic. “Stuff we picked up a while ago… lovely, but so nearly transparent it was useless for clothing--”

“Except for an invisible girl, since-- who cares if it’s see through, she’s invisible!” Shar’Din resurfaced with an enormous roll of some diaphanous cloth that did, indeed shimmer like soap bubble. He dragged out a drawing board and began sketching, his long fingers flying. “Summer and winter outfits again, but start with a nice gown… then of course a swimsuit, knock ‘em dead at the beach...”

He waved a free hand in the air. Tendrils of light began to dance through the room. Cloth and ribbon and silken thread rose up and danced.. and the invisible girl looked on in wonder.

* * *

“…There we are, darling,” Parian cooed, lifting the tatty red cloak out of the trunk. It lifted a corner and stroked her cheek affectionately. “You know how you’ve been wanting a new home? Well, this girl is no Sorcerer Supreme, but I think you’ll suit each other fine. Come along, let’s put on a new outer lining for you...”

* * *

“Permanent muffliatos on the boots, dust repellant spells on everything,” Shar’Din said. “A nice hefty pile of Azeroth protectives on everything as well. Fire, ice, acid, arcane, plain old armor rating. Put a mild disillusionment and notice-me-not in there, too, just to tweak her invisibility a bit. Full body leotard, boots, glove, full face mask-- nice wide eye openings of course-- and belt. Small haversack.

“And of course the final touch… the cloak,” Parian said, putting the folded item on top of the rest. “all in invisible cloth #5. Oh, and of course one patched Paladin cape.” She began wrapping the stack in brown paper. “She should be very happy with this.”

“And the VISIBLE clothes, as well,” Shar’Din said with satisfaction, wrapping a second package. “Two or three pieces in translucent silks. A couple of summer dresses, two swimsuits, leggings, a couple of full leotards, one of those big puffy coats for winter...” He gestured. “And of course, the _piece de resistance_ \-- come on out, and take a look at yourself!”

Toru stepped out from behind the dressing screen. She was dressed in what could only be called a ball gown. It was off the shoulder, and was made of endless layers of the pale, transparent silk that seemed to float around her in layers of ruffles. She had elbow-length gloves on of the same material to show off her hands. Glitter gel had been combed through her hair, which was tied back with a bow of more of the rainbow-bubble silk. Her eyelids had been daubed with glitter as well, to draw attention to her face-- or at least where it should be. “It… it’s beautiful,” Toru said. “I’ve never even worn anything this beautiful before.”

Parian applauded, but Shar’Din frowned. “It’s still… missing something,” he said.

“Someone to look good in it,” Toru said wistfully.

“No no no no!” Shar’Din snapped. “Pretty is as pretty does, Toru-san. The dress is the frame, you are the picture.” He tugged on his long ponytail in vexation. “I always have trouble with invisibility. Remember the ring, Parian?”

Parian chuckled and nodded. “Never got it to work right, did you?”

“A ring?”

“My failed attempt at a proper invisibility ring, except instead of turning you invisible it--” his almond eyes went wide and he suddenly bolted as if the Devil were after him. Toru heard him clattering down the spiral stairwell.

Toru looked at Parian. “He’s not… like I expected an elf to be,” she said.

Parian chuckled and leaned in as if to reveal a secret. “Don’t let on. He’s been trying to cultivate that ‘fabulous mysterious elven’ routine for years. When we first met, he sounded like a stoner.”

“Really??”

Parian nodded. “A blonde, beach bum stoner surfer dooooood.” She made the kahuna sign, her eyes behind the domino mask crinkling in mirth. “He still slips up every now and then...”

“ _Bodacious!”_ came Shar’Din’s scream from below.

“See what I mean?”

The two were giggling fitfully when he returned. He came running up, a jewelry box in his hand. “Got it!” he said. He opened the box and pulled out a ring. “With this ring, I proclaim thee… the belle of the ball.” He slipped it on Toru’s finger and gave it one full turn clockwise.

Parian gasped, her hands to her mouth. “Oh, child...”

“You are a VISION,” Shar’Din said reverently. He turned her to face the dressing mirror standing against the wall.

Toru gasped. Staring back at her was a girl made of crystal, dressed in a gown of translucent rainbows. Her hair was a shimmering waterfall of glass thread; her eyes and the teeth in her smile the white of frost. She raised her hand; the girl did too. She smiled; the girl smiled back. “Is that me?” she said faintly, touching her own face. Tears budded in her eyes, crystal droplets on crystal cheeks. “Is that really my face?”

“It was like, a total bungle,” Shar’Din was saying. “I totally barfed up the enchantments; it doesn’t make the wearer or his stuff invisible, it makes the wearer or anything the wearer touches that’s invisible _turn visible._ Tweaks the refraction index on anything invisible so it looks like glass…” he snorted. “Of course the ring turns ITSELF invisible just fine… oh, to turn it on or off you just twist it on your finger one turn and--”

And the next moment he was being strangled half to death by an armful of happily weeping girl.

* * *

Toru sat alone in her room, happily hugging herself. Her new wardrobe, with the beautiful new gown, hung in her closet. She had put in a commission for two more “visibility rings”-- one for each of her parents, who were invisible as well. She finally had a costume she could wear and use with her Quirk.

Who knew how much could change in a single day?

She pulled the invisible cloak out of the packing and threw it over her shoulders. It felt so warm and cozy-- and protective. Something crinkled; there was a note pinned to the hem. Puzzled, she unpinned it and read it.

_This cloak and you belong together._

_Be kind to him,_

_and he’ll serve you well._

_Warm wash, tumble dry. (he likes bounce fabric softener sheets.)_

Wait. What?

_Yes. Trust affection partnership duo team family_

She gasped felt the collar of the cloak brush her cheek-- almost affectionately. The cloak rose up around her, floating in the air around her. She looked down and realized that she was floating as well, nearly three feet over her bed.

“Holy---!”

Yes indeed, a lot could definitely change in a single day.

* * *

_For those of you who think Hagakure got the steal of the century-- remember that in Harry Potter, strands of a unicorn's tail were **ten galleons a hair.** You can imagine what exotic hairs from an invisible girl's head would be worth.  
_


	4. Chapter 4

The bell on the door of the Lost Workshop jingled merrily. Mineta peered around cautiously as he edged inside. The place wasn’t quite like they described it-- for one thing noone had said anything about the entrance being at the end of some dingy, trash strewn Tokyo alley. And rather than a small, cozy shoppe it seemed fairly large, with a twelve-foot ceiling, crooked aisles and shelves that stretched nearly as high. But it was indeed stuffed to the ceiling with all manner of items both mundane and whimsical, some on shelves and tables, some hanging from the ceiling, some standing alone… He began trawling through the shelves, looking at everything.  


  
He made his way to the back of the store where Midoriya had said the shoppe attendant’s register was. Instead of a register though the back end of the store opened up into a fairly sizeable open floored workspace, with stools and worktables here and there strewn with odd mechanical parts, racks of tools and shelves lining the walls filled with bins and jars full of parts… or were they ingredients?… some of which glowed or moved or just gave you a headache to look at. It was like--- like a leprechaun’s workshop or something.  
  
And it was occupied. And NOT by some little roly poly leprechaun.  
  
Mineta nearly screamed and ran when he realized there were two enormous WEREWOLVES wrestling around in the middle of the room. Growls echoed in the room. They were tussling around, their clothes torn askew; the larger black male had just tossed the female up on the table and _whoah boy they were NOT fighting--_  
  
Mineta let out a strangled squawk. He’d just realized that what he was interrupting would probably make them even _angrier_ than interrupting a fight when the female glanced over the male’s shoulder and saw him. She let out a surprisingly girly shriek and dove behind the table, frantically adjusting her blouse.  
  
“What--??” The male spun around on his heel and clapped eyes on Mineta. “WHOA, hey, customer-- uh--” He began clumsily brushing his dishevelled hair (Fur? Mane?) with his claws and trying to straighten his shirt.  
  
“No fooling,” came the sarcastic remark from behind the table. The were-girl peeped over the tabletop and gave Mineta a mortified smile. “Uhhh, Hi,” she said. “Welcome to the Lost Workshop… My name is Hemlokk, this is Bayleaf, we’ll be dying of mortification for you today...”  
  
“Sorry honey, I’ll-- yeah...” her boyfriend said, facepalming and gesturing to the door at the back of the store. The girl bolted, regardless of her state of deshabille. Mineta couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of shoulder and thigh and more than a share of black lace as she vanished through the door.  
  
“Whoah,” he mumbled to himself, gawking. His heart nearly stopped as he realized the girl’s boyfriend was standing right next to him.  
  
To his immense relief the massive beast-man actually chuckled. “You got THAT right,” he said, clearly amused. Mineta sighed in relief to himself, the ice in his veins thawing.  
  
The wolfman looked about, grumbling as he scratched his head. “Blasted front door must be going wonky again,” he muttered to Mineta’s mystification. “Eh, it’s probably for the best,” he said… though he certainly didn’t sound like he felt it. “The wedding’s in two weeks… we got this far on self control, it’d be a shame not to go the distance-- just two more weeks...” He gazed longingly at the closed door and let out a gusty sigh.  
  
“Uh, yeah,” Mineta said, carefully smothering his skepticism. “And, uh, congratulations?”  
  
He glanced up at the wolfman. The wolfman was looking at him with an amused air. “Still that young, huh?” he said. “Still think it’s all about getting as much as you can, right? Trust me, kid, in the end, ‘all you can get’ doesn’t even compare to the One and Only. And the best things in life are always worth waiting for.” He finished tucking in his shirt and looked around. “So, what brings you to the Lost Workshop?”  
  
“A, uh, classmate told me that you might be able to help me, uh, ‘up my Hero game?’” Mineta said, waggling his hand.  
  
The wolfman-- Bayleaf, they’d said?-- rubbed his chin. “Ah, a U.A. student.” He gestured to one of the stools by the worktable. “Pull up a seat, and give me the lowdown on your powers...”  
  
Mineta ran down the basics of his Quirk. As he talked, the wolfman moved around the room, picking odds and ends off the shelves…. A row of vials, several odd stones and ingots of metal, a box of gold and silver rings. “So they don’t stick to you, and you can control whether they stick to anything else,” he said, leading.  
Mineta nodded. “I can make them un-stick with a touch,” he added. “And they won’t stick to anything till I pop ‘em loose first.”  
  
“I figured,” Bayleaf said, stroking his chin as he looked over a rack of tools. “Otherwise you’d spend every morning prying your pillows off your head… That suggests a low level psychometric control of the spheres’ properties...” he descended into a surprisingly Midoriya-like mumble. “Range and power would be easy to leverage-- but to what end? No, what he needs is more versatility...” he nodded. “Yes. Versatility’s the trick.” He pulled down a red lacquered box and set it on the worktable next to the other odds and ends. “ Give me about… six of those globes of yours. Here, here, here, here, here, and here.” He laid out several shallow glass plates. “You know,” he said idly as he sat down on a stool and started arranging his tools, “This isn’t usually how this goes.”  
  
“It isn’t?” Mineta said, puzzled. He popped the globes and stuck them to the plates as ordered.  
  
Bayleaf nodded, picking up a ring and examining it minutely through a jeweler’s loupe. “You know the folklore… the hero stumbles across a little shop that wasn’t there the day before-- one with a weird, gnarly, wrinkled little old man behind the counter, and the weird little old man just HAPPENS to have some trinket or gadget that is the key to solving all the hero's problems. Or that he THINKS will solve them... one or the other.” He gave Mineta a wide, toothy and very unsettling grin. Mineta found himself trying to swallow a lump in his throat.  
  
“But here… this time, this place...” Bayleaf picked up a bottle with an eyedropper in it and applied a single drop to the first hairball. “Well, we're a little short on little old weird men. Plus, several of our ‘customers’ lately have had problems that aren’t exactly off-the-shelf. At least when compared to other places we’ve set up shop.” He watched closely as the hairball bubbled, smoked, and began to melt. He repeated the process with the next hairball, using a different liquid; this time rather than dissolving the hairball turned a shimmery, soapy color. “Interesting. Anyway, it’s meant we’ve had to… get a bit more personally involved. Customize a bit, to get just the right result.”  
  
“I hope this time it’s a ‘fix my problems’ one and not the ‘instant karma’ thing,” Mineta joked feebly.  
  
Bayleaf gave him an amused sidelong look. “It all depends,” he said. “We try to help everyone, you know-- it’s only good business. But some people, well, it could be raining soup and they’d put their bowl upside down.” He scooted an empty petri dish over to Mineta. “Here,” he said, unwrapping something in a foil packet. “Need a drop of your blood.-- Oh don’t worry, it’s just a little mini lancet, diabetics use them all the time to check their blood sugar. Just put the end against your finger and press the button-- no no, like--”  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“There, you got it.” A tiny drop of blood welled at Mineta’s fingertip; he let it fall into the dish. Bayleaf handed him an alcohol swab and a bandaid. “There you go.” The wolfman set the dish down and set an odd purplish crystal upright on the dot of blood. It began to glow deep within, ever so faintly.  
  
Bayleaf turned back to the remaining hairballs and began prodding one with what looked like an electric probe. “So, you do know the folklore, don’t you?” he asked idly.  
  
“I’ve heard the stories,” Mineta admitted.  
  
“So why take the risk? Why do you want to be a Pro Hero so badly?”  
  
Mineta turned his back and sat with his arms crossed. “Why would any guy? To be rich and famous and popular and to get lots of girls, duh!”  
  
The wolfman’s hands actually slipped briefly. “And you think that will work?”  
  
Mineta looked at him in surprise. “What, no lecture about how I should have a more _noble cause_ to be a Pro Hero?” he said a little scathingly.  
  
Bayleaf ruminated on that. “Not really,” he said, surprising Mineta further. “I mean, it’d be great if everyone did what they do for some high-sounding moral or noble cause. But even heroes gotta eat. If I’m in a burning building, I don’t care if the fireman climbing the ladder does it in memory of his noble firefighting grandfather or if he’s just there to impress chicks; I’m just glad he’s there.  
  
“There are millions of people out there trying to get money or fame or a mate-- billions of squirrels all trying to get a nut--- and there are worse ways to go about it than being a Pro Hero.” He adjusted a setting on one of his tools and bent over the table again. “But I notice you didn’t answer my question. Do you really think that will work?”  
  
Mineta threw a Gallic shrug. “Sure, why not? Works for everybody else. You ever seen Gun Head? Or Death Arms? They look like their mothers fed them with a slingshot--” Bayleaf snorted and nearly dropped the tools he was wielding. “And those guys are dripping with hot and cold running babes! Once they hit the big time and started enjoying that million-yen income...”  
  
“Or maybe once they started treating the women around them nicer?” Bayleaf suggested dryly.  
  
Mineta shrugged again. “Well yeah! Once you start spending big wads of cash on women, they go from slapping your face to eating out of your hand.” He spun his seat around idly. “All that stuff they say about charm and charisma and gentlemanly this and courtly that-- It’s all a big put-on. Girls are all the same. They act all prudish and prissy and uptight and offended at how you act…. till they figure out they can get what they want out of you. Then they’re all cuddles and kisses and ‘oh you’re the funniest, sexiest guy in the world.’”  
  
Bayleaf let out a long sigh and set down his tools. He stared off into space for a moment. “Some of them are like that, yes,” he finally said, slowly and reluctantly, as if admitting something terribly painful. “Not nearly as many as you think, but-- yes. But… Mineta-san… are those the kind that you _want?”_  
  
“Those are the kind that I’ll GET,” Mineta said, rolling his eyes with a smirk. “I didn’t write the rules, I just play the game.”  
  
There was a silent pause that seemed to grow of its own accord. “Well, this will take another hour or so,” Bayleaf said suddenly. “Perhaps you’d like to browse our storefront while I finish the work on this.” He gestured to a door that Mineta hadn’t noticed before.  
  
“Uh, sure, okay.” Mineta slid down off the stool and headed for the door. He took a moment to hope that the Lost Workshop took credit cards…  
  
Bayleaf picked up one of the two rings he was working on in a pair of forceps and looked it over. “That boy’s messed up,” he murmured to himself with a sigh of regret. He knew they were contract-bound to help anyone who came through the front door. Help, or… administer a course correction. One or the other. He was at a bit of a loss as to what Road to Damascus moment the Lost Workshop could administer to a kid like that, though.  
  
******  
  
Mineta found himself standing in an odds-and-ends shoppe. This was a little more like it! It was a proper fanciful shoppe from nowhere, with gadgets and trinkets and geegaws and whimseys everywhere you looked. Some of them, like the glass butterflies, entranced; others, like the skeletal hand clutching a candle, sent shivers up and down his spine at a glance.  
  
There were a surprising number of secondhand books, tucked here and there on the shelves. Most of them seemed to be self-help books of some sort or the other. Here was a book on improving one’s memory; there, a program on increasing one’s muscle, by one C. Atlas. There were two entire rows of books, one for Dummies, another full of guides for Complete Idiots…. Mineta felt a bit put out about those, for some reason.  
  
There was one in particular he found amidst a display of personal grooming products that caught his eye. There was a mirrored tray set out with several samples of perfume and cologne. Each bottle had a small booklet tied around the neck, sporting what were apparently the names of the perfumes: MERMAID’S KISS. DREAMS REMEMBERED. FELIX FELICIS… The one that caught his eye, though, bore a little booklet with gold-embossed lettering: WHAT WOMEN WANT (one dose lasts three days!)  
  
He laughed ruefully. “Man, if only.” He picked it up and took a little whiff; it wasn’t a bad cologne, really. “If anybody knew what women really wanted, they’d rule the world in a week,” he said. “Well, no harm in thinking positive--” he thumbed the spritzer and gave himself a liberal dose.  
  
Just as he did, bells chimed. “Mineta Minoru,” a voice called. “Mineta Minoru, your order is ready.” Musings forgotten, Mineta hastily set down the bottle, not even giving the booklet a glance, and eagerly headed for the back of the store. He certainly never noticed as the tray and its contents slowly vanished.  
  
Much of what happens in a Little Shop That Wasn’t There Yesterday is up to chance. More than a fair share of that chance is due to meddling, for good or ill, by the staff. But from time to time the store will go out of its way to show it has a mind of its own…  
  
***  
  
Bayleaf dragged his diminutive customer to what looked like a target range-- an empty warehouse with straw-filled manikins standing against the far wall-- before giving him the artifact. “So what does it do?” Mineta said, frowning at the ring snugly fit over his middle finger. Bayleaf gave him a knowing smile.  
  
“Easier to show than to tell. Go ahead; pop one of your hairballs off.” Mineta complied. “Okay, now close your eyes. Focus on the ball in your hand; it’s weight, its shape, its stretchiness, its stickiness...”  
  
“W-weird,” Mineta said, his eyes scrunched shut. “It’s almost like I can-- whoa!” The ball in his hand suddenly began wobbling back and forth, gelatin-like. “I can feel it, in my head--”  
  
“Okay, you got it! Now, picture what you want it to do and throw it!” Bayleaf pointed to the straw man standing at the far end of the room.  
  
Mineta reared back and threw the hairball with all his strength. It struck the straw man, sticking fast, and then…  
  
POP. The ball burst, and the manikin, the wall behind it and the floor around it were covered in a tangled web of thick, purple strands. Bayleaf whooped. “Hah! A web bomb!” He leapt over and tugged at the straw figure with gloved hands, trying to pull it loose. “Uff. Good strong one too. Excellent!”  
  
Mineta could feel his enthusiasm growing. Web bombs like that would be a game-changer…  
  
“Okay--” the wolfman pointed to the next strawman. “Now make an oil slick!”  
  
BLARCH. The strawman and the floor it stood on were coated with slippery purple snot. Bayleaf nearly fell on his ass going to inspect it. He laughed it off and pointed to the next target.  
  
“A mass of foam!” BOOSH. The strawman disappeared in a blob of purple froth. By the time Bayleaf got over to it, it had hardened into a stiff, styrofoam-like lump.  
  
“A bullwhip!” The ball Mineta was clutching elongated into a sticky purple rope. He snapped it out, snaring the next strawman right in the face with the sticky end and yanking it off its feet.  
  
“A super-bounce ball!” This one wibbled briefly, shrinking down to the size of a softball. Instead of sticking when it struck it ricocheted around the room, forcing the two to jump and duck for a few seconds as it threatened to knock them silly.  
  
“This is so awesome!!” Mineta was practically giggling with excitement at this point. “How is this working??”  
  
Bayleaf crouched down next to him and tapped the ring. “Amplification,” he said simply. “You already had a limited sort of mental affinity-- touch-based control-- for your hairballs. That’s how you can keep them from sticking to you, and why their stickiness is affected by how healthy or ill you feel. The ring just amplifies that, so now you can control their shape, viscosity, adhesiveness… pretty much all their physical properties.”  
  
“Cool,” Mineta breathed.  
  
“Better yet, the longer you wear it, the more your sensitivity will grow. In a few years time you might not even need the ring at all.”  
  
“I’m never taking this thing off again!” Mineta clenched his fist. “Hahah! Just wait, forces of evil, you’ve not seen NOTHING yet! Make way for… GRAPE JUICE!”  
  
He saw Bayleaf cringe. “what?”  
  
Bayleaf held up a finger. “Could I possibly make a suggestion…?” he said. “Regarding the name...”  
  
“But I picked out that name ages ago,” Mineta protested. “It says ‘I got the Juice!’ you know, the power!”  
  
“It says ‘I’m something little and purple that just got squished,’” Bayleaf retorted dryly. “Maybe something a little more confident...”  
  
******  
  
  
“Okay, how about Pop Top?”  
  
“Eeeeh, kinda. Purple Rain?”  
  
“Lawsuit city. The Indigo Kid.”  
  
“I ain’t gonna be fourteen forever, you know.”  
  
“True. Ummm… Modular Man.”  
  
“I think that one’s taken. Guy in Germany who can pop his arms and legs off.”  
  
“Ah…. Wow, that’s really lame.”  
  
“So’s he when both his legs detach.”  
  
“Ouch. Okay, I got it---”  
  
****  
  
And thus it was that the newly christened hero-in-training, Grape Shot, had his purchase rung up (with a heart-attack inducing receipt) and exited onto a crowded Tokyo street.  
  
Two or three train rides from home.  
  
Sigh.  
  
  
******  
  
Mineta Minoru woke up early the next day, eager to get to classes and to show everyone his new moves. The ring hadn’t left his finger since he’d put it on the day before, and if he had his way it never would; he could feel his control of his Quirk growing the longer it was on. He fiddled about with his Quirk as he got ready, using his control to make the hairballs into cubes, rings, chains, to make them extra sticky, or elastic, or make them hard as tire rubber... he was like a kid with a new toy. The possibilities--!  
  
He was so distracted-- practically indulging in a Midoriya Mumblefest of his own, speculating what he could do with his new abilities-- that he didn't even notice the other side effect, till he was on the train.  
  
He’d gotten to his usual car, flirted with the usual girl who was always riding that car, and sat down opposite her with one of his schoolbooks when he heard it.'  
  
_Ugh, him again. Lumpy headed little weirdo_  
  
Startled he looked up from his textbook. “Excuse me?”  
  
She looked up in surprise. “Apologies, but I didn’t say anything,” she said politely. At the same time she spoke he heard a voice-- it sounded nothing like her; nothing like anyone really, but he knew it was hers:  
  
_And now he’s going to try and strike up a conversation. Euw. Little creep_  
  
But her lips didn’t move. Her expression of polite disinterest didn’t change either. What was shocking was the sense of utter revulsion that seemed to spike the words.  
  
_I swear, if you try to look down my blouse again--_  
  
Mineta sputtered in shock. He’d NEVER---! Not… in a while. Not so anyone would notice, maybe out of the corner of his eye, but-- He bridled his indignation. “Well, sister,” he said, deliberately glaring at the low cut of her cleavage, “Maybe if you don’t want people staring at the melons you shouldn’t put ‘em up in the grocery window--!”  
  
****  
  
He got off the train an awkward thirty minutes later, sporting a fresh black eye. “Well, that was bizarre,” he grumbled, nursing his eye. She’d spent most of the ride screaming at him and the conductor about his behavior… and her voice had only gotten higher and louder when he’d repeated what she’d said, denying everything of course. They’d ended up letting her move into another car, ranting all the way (she HAD punched him, after all.)  
  
“Probably an American chick,” Mineta grumbled. He’d heard that American women were all crazy. ‘Bakugo’ levels of crazy.  
  
Maybe Recovery Girl could fix up his eye before classes.  
  
The entire walk the strangeness continued. He kept hearing the oddest snippets of conversation from the people around him, almost like hearing half a telephone conversation. But it was always girls who were speaking.  
  
  
_\--Have to get more of Mr. MaoMao’s favorite fish treats---  
  
\--Hate this early morning foot traffic--  
  
\--Bra is KILLING me already--  
  
\--If he wants sex tonight well he’d better have someplace nicer than an udon shop planned for dinner--_  
  
Some of the comments made him stumble in his tracks in shock-- holy crap but girls these days were getting candid!--- but whenever he darted a glance around to see who was speaking he never caught them.  
  
When he got to class 1A, the girls were flipping out. They were all clustered around one desk. There was a new girl there; a stunningly beautiful one, too. She was dressed in the school uniform but the rest of her looked like living glass.--She held up her hand. On her middle finger was a crystalline ring. “And when I twist it like this...” she said. She grasped the ring with her fingertips and turned it; and she faded out of existence, till there was nothing but an empty uniform sitting there…then faded back in.  
  
Mineta recognized her voice just as she disappeared, and it clicked. “Hagakure?” he yelped in surprise. “Wow, that was amazing! You can control your invisibility now-- and wow, you’re as hot as I--”  
  
Almost as one, all the girls gathered turned on him and hit him with… a GLARE like he’d never imagined. Expressions of… _hate_ and _revulsion smeared across their faces…_  
  
“ _Oh you disgusting little...”_  
  
“ _Appalling little creep--”_  
  
“ _You WOULD ruin this for her, wouldn’t you--”_  
  
“ _\--Awful little—why does he have to be like this--”_  
  
“ _\--Horrible--”_  
  
“ _\--Little--”_  
  
“ _\--Creep--”_  
  
  
The wave of disgust was so palpable he actually staggered back a step. It took him a moment to realize that _none of the girls had actually opened their mouths._ Most weren’t even looking at him. The few that were certainly weren’t _snarling with revulsion,_ what had that been-- “I… I…” he choked. “You-- you look good, Hagakure… that’s all I--” he choked on his own tongue and scurried for his desk.  
  
  
“ _\--The heck was that about--”_  
  
  
“ _\--weird little twerp--”_  
  
  
Mineta stared at his desktop, thunderstruck. He could hear what the girls were thinking.  
  
  
He could _hear_ what girls were _thinking._  
  
  
His mind pinwheeled even as Aizawa-sensei took attendance.  
  
***  
  
Mineta’s day was filled with more revelations. They were not happy ones.  
  
He concluded quickly that he did NOT want anyone to find out about this strange new power of his. Between the fairly unpopular nature of Mind-based Quirks, and the ever-more-nagging doubts he was having about the _technical legality_ of the Lost Workshop, the less and less he wanted anyone getting curious about his sudden mind-reading talent.  
  
He didn’t even get a chance to show off the new skills with his regular Quirk. He was too unconfident now to even try. He was too busy getting hammered by far more personal revelations thanks to his mind reading.  
  
Calling it mind reading was misleading, though. It was more like being surrounded by girls-- and yes, he confirmed it, it only worked on females-- who blurted the most shocking, random things out loud whenever he walked in range.  
  
Being able to read girls' minds...! It sounded like any pervert's dream come true. It was anything but. It was depressingly uninformative and unenlighting. Most of it was mindless chatter that filled the air right along with the spoken gossip ; thoughts about the day, school work, shopping trips, random bits of music, and the like… all melding into staticy background noise. It was leaving him more and more rattled, like being at a too-loud party where everyone was shouting out whatever popped into their heads. If he was close enough he could feel the emotions behinds the thoughts, but it was barely any more informative; surges of jealousy, bubbles of sadness, bright bursts of hope, sharp jabs of unhappiness or apprehension...  
  
The thing that was cutting him down the fastest though was the thoughts that bubbled up whenever the girls noticed his presence. Not a one of them had a kind thought for him. Disinterest, disdain, annoyance… what was most shocking were the ones who noticed him and their mental “voice” suddenly filled with _unhappiness bordering on fear._ As if something wet and slimy and slug-like had just crawled up their leg…  
  
  
“ _Why won’t he go away?”_  
  
“ _Why won’t he leave us alone?”_  
  
“ _Disgusting, horrible little creep--”_  
  
And then there were the violent ones:  
  
  
“ _I’d kick his nuts in if I could--”  
  
"Needs his teeth kicked in--"_  
  
“ _Stab his pervy eyes out--”_  
  
  
He’d taken to bolting down the hall before they could formulate a complete thought, flashes of memories of some past thing he’d said or done ringing in his skull.  
  
By lunch period he was rattled. But his breaking point was, of all places, art class with Midnight-Sensei.  
  
“Now the European Renaissance covers the period from...”  
  
Anyone who knew Mineta would have figured that classes with the R-Rated Heroine would be right up his alley. And truthfully he, like his more honest male classmates, would admit having walking Fanservice for one class certainly spiced up the middle of the day.  
  
At least at first.  
  
But as time had gone by, a lot of them, even Mineta, had found themselves… unnerved by the heroine’s behavior. The looks, the innuendo, the euphemisms… it got... creepy.  
  
Today, though, with her mind shouting its every thought in Mineta’s ear, it went above and beyond. He could hear her every thought as she looked at each of the boys in class.  
  
  
_"Desire pools dark and deadly in my groin...."_  
  
The hell?  
  
“ _My inner goddess stares, drooling...”_  
  
Her inner WHAT?  
  
_"His gaze is intense, all humor gone, and **strange muscles deep in my belly clench** suddenly…" _  
  
She wasn’t just thinking nasty thoughts, she was _narrating_ them.  
_  
"I have become my own island state. A ravaged, war-torn land where nothing grows and the horizons are bleak..."_  
  
Narrating them badly, too.  
  
Worse were the surges of feelings that came from her with every thought and passing glance. Even as she was reciting a list of influential artists from the Late Renaissance, she was composing narration for a porno in her head and lavishing looks on the taller, buffer males in her class that would make a wiser man run for his life. How in hell was she even capable of strutting back and forth in front of the class like that without tripping and falling on her face? The emotions coming from her made Mineta feel like something had dragged its slimy tongue across his soul.  
  
“ _And his **tumescent youth--** ”_ Her eyes met his.  
  
Mineta slapped his hands down on his desk. “That’s it, I’m gone!” He grabbed his bookbag and bolted. He ignored the shouts for him to stop and didn’t quit running till he was out the front gate and blocks down the road.  
  
And every step of the way he could hear female classmates he passed, shooting unspoken barbs at him…  
  
  
*****  
  
The train home only had a few salarymen on board. No salaryWOMEN, Mineta was relieved to see. He didn’t think he could take much more verbal battering.  
  
Mineta was a shaking wreck. His female classmates, their thoughts around him had been filled with such _vitriol._ He clung to the edge of his seat till his knuckles whitened. How did this happen? WHY did this happen? He’d tried removing the ring; it made no difference. He must have worn it too long already; the curse was set…  
  
  
_Not tonight, not tonight, oh gods please not tonight_  
  
His mental ears perked up. It was only him and a couple of sleeping businessmen in this car. Why was he ‘hearing’ anything? Then a couple of people shuffled on board; a young girl, maybe a year or two younger than himself, and a gray-haired man. They were together, obviously-- the old man held onto the girl’s arm-- but something seemed… off..?  
  
Following some instinct, Mineta slouched down in his seat and tucked his feet under him, disappearing from view. The grey haired man and the girl sat down nearby. Mineta didn’t have to see them; he could ‘hear’ the girl loud and clear.  
  
_Not tonight, not tonight, please not tonight uncle, please--_  
  
  
The fear, the misery, the revulsion in the girl’s inner voice, made Mineta’s stomach roil. This, no this couldn’t be what he thought. Carefully, he peeked around the side of his seat. The man was seated next to the girl, pressed up to her side as she leaned away as far as she could. The man bent his head down and mumbled something in her ear… slid his hand up her leg, under the hem of her skirt--  
  
  
_images flashed through his head of what ‘Uncle’ had done, what he was going to do once the girl got home--  
  
  
No, please, why won’t anyone stop him--_  
  
  
The shame and horror the girl was feeling roared over Mineta like a tidal wave of sewage, cold and vile. And under that torrent, something in him… broke.  
  
He leapt to his feet, standing in his seat, and pointed at the grey-haired bastard. _**“Kono yarou!! Sukebe!!”**_ He screamed.  
  
The man jerked erect, surprise and astonished guilt on his face. He promptly caught a purple globe, hard as india rubber, straight to the face, breaking his nose. With a strangled yawp he tumbled out of his seat and scrambled for cover.  
  
“Come back here, you _Yaro **Saitei!!”**_ The pervert made it halfway up the aisle before a pair of purple balls exploded at his feet, snaring him in gluey webbing.  
  
“BAKA! DIIIIEEEE!!” – And then the tiny purple bundle of wrath was upon him.  
  
The old pervert had a Quirk, of course; he could turn his hair into spikes of steel. But that meant little when his head was encased in purple gunk. And Mineta may have been little, but he was wiry and spry, and he put the hand-to-hand training he’d received to good use. By the time the conductors and police pulled him off the creep, the creep was a lumpy, bruised and bloody mess.  
  
In the course of the ruckus the train had pulled into a station, and security and police had poured in. The train was idled, sitting in the station with its doors open as Japan’s finest pulled everyone out onto the platform and tried to sort out what happened.  
  
“He’s a molester!” Mineta shouted when the cops demanded to know what happened. “He’s been abusing his niece--” he pointed to the girl, who was standing a few feet away, hunched up and frightened. “I caught him in the act, sliding his hand up her skirt--”  
  
This caused an uproar, to be sure. The police shouted everyone down, then turned to the girl. “Is this true, miss?” one of them asked. The girl turned away, refusing to meet the officer’s eye.  
  
After all this…??? “Tell him!” Mineta exploded. “Tell him!!” He pulled away from the cop holding him and stalked over to her. “You were sitting there just now, praying _‘not tonight,’ **begging the gods** to make it stop!_ Well this is it! All you have to do is TELL THE TRUTH, and it will stop! **TELL THEM!!”**  
  
She stared at him, eyes round as saucers, lip trembling. “YES!” she finally shouted. Then she exploded into noisy tears. Between howling sobs, she told everyone what her Uncle had been doing to her… and to her older sister… and what she feared he’d do to her younger…  
  
The hubbub before was nothing to the uproar that rose at this. The grey-haired old pervert was yanked out of his gluey restraints and cuffed none too gently. The perv was hauled away; the girl was enfolded by EMTs who whisked her away, hopefully, to comfort and safety. Like garbage attracted flies, the ruckus attracted a crowd of rubberneckers. People were pressing in, holding up cellphones to catch him on webcam. A roving news crew actually pushed camera and microphone into his face, shouting questions. Several cops clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him...  
  
“...And we’re going to get an interview now with this brave young man who exemplifies what a young hero-to-be should be!”  
  
Mineta wanted to puke. He looked into the camera lens with an expression like he saw the Devil himself in its depths. “I’m not,” he croaked. “I’m no hero.” He popped a ball off his head.  
  
_Grappling line_  
  
The purple orb turned into a fat rope in his hand. He snapped it like a whip; the end extended, shooting out to stick to a second-story buttress on a nearby building. The rope retracted, yanking him up out of the middle of the crowd. The moment his toes touched a window ledge he had another globe in hand, whipping out for a building cornice a block away. Soon he had hair-slung his way out of sight.  
  
  
  
*****  
  
It was near sunset when Izuku found Mineta. It had been a full-on hullubaloo that day; first Mineta had been acting bizarre-- even for him-- for most of the school day. His bizarre behavior had culminated with him running out of class and bolting off-campus to heaven knew where. This had been alarming enough for the staff of UA, but then he’d made his rather shocking debut an hour or so later on the news, “wanted for questioning” by the police concerning the arrest of a train-car pervert…!  
  
  
There was considerable embarrassment amongst the more vocal students when it was revealed that Mineta Minoru was not, in fact, the pervert who was arrested. And a considerable wave of astonishment (and in some corners quite a bit of scornful disbelief) when it was revealed that Mineta had in fact _rescued_ a young girl from a pervert’s clutches. Still, the more honorably minded students of 1A-- Midoriya, Iida, and others-- heard that their classmate was now missing, and had resolved to search for him after classes.  
  
As it worked out, Izuku was the one to find the grape-haired boy. Mineta was wandering aimlessly up and down a trash strewn alley, a manila card clutched in his hands. His clothes were a mess and his face was streaked with tears and snot.  
  
“Mineta!” Izuku called. He ran up to the boy and put his hand on his shoulder. “Mineta, what are you doing here??”  
  
Mineta looked up at him; he barely seemed to recognize Izuku. “I can’t go back yet. I gotta get rid of it,” he said. “I gotta give it back!” He held up a thick golden ring in his fingers.  
  
Izuku shook him by the shoulders a little. “Mineta, snap out of it! What is it, why do you have to give this ring back--?”  
  
Mineta sagged down on some door’s back step, clutching the card and the ring in one hand, his head in the other. “I… I went to the Shop,” he said miserably.  
  
Izuku sat down next to him. “What… what happened?” He handed the blubbering boy a handkerchief.  
  
Mineta wiped his face, blew his nose, and started talking. He told Izuku everything: getting the power-enhancing ring, discovering he could hear a girl’s thoughts-- ANY girl’s thoughts, whether he wanted to or not, having to run away to get away from all the noise in his head… hearing the girl on the train silently pleading for help… running away again…  
  
“But.. I don’t understand,” Izuku said. He gave Mineta a worried smile. “I mean, you rescued that girl!-- oh, the police aren’t angry or anything, you’re not being charged with vigilantism, if that’s--”  
  
Mineta shook his head. “No. You really don’t understand…” he choked a bit. “When I heard that girl praying for help... the feelings she was letting out… about her uncle… all the disgust and shame and… and…”  
  
His face crumpled again. “It was the _exact same feelings_ the girls at school felt whenever they saw _me._ ”  
  
Izuku’s jaw dropped. Mineta plowed on. “It wasn’t some, some righteous anger that made me jump the guy. It was _self loathing._ I looked at him, and… _and I saw myself in twenty years._ Assuming I’m not _already_ … that…” his voice was redolent with disgust.  
  
Izuku’s expression firmed. “NO,” he said sternly. Mineta looked up at him, surprised. “No, Mineta, that was NOT you. It was you looking out a darkened window, seeing another person’s face, and thinking it was a reflection.  
  
You’ve got your problems, and you’ve made some bad choices, and… maybe you’re kind of a lech sometimes…” Mineta grimaced but didn’t deny it. “but you jumped that guy because he did something that made you _angry_ , something you would _never_ do. You’re out here all torn to pieces because you learned in the worst way possible that you’d hurt someone, and you cared that you did. That guy never would have cared. You can learn. That guy never did.  
  
“You’re better than that. You proved it. And you can be better than you _are_ \-- if you just put a little effort into it.”  
  
Mineta sniffled and looked up at him. “You really mean that?” he croaked.  
  
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” Izuku said. He chuckled suddenly. “You made a heck of an impression, by the way. They got footage off the security cameras and have been showing it on the news all day.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No, look, check it out...” Izuku held out his cellphone, the video already playing. Mineta’s eyebrows rose as he watched.  
  
“Wow. I really lost it on that guy.”  
  
Izuku nodded. “Hah. No kidding. The newscasters are calling you ‘the Grapes of Wrath.’”  
  
“Ahahah!”  
  
There was a jingle behind them. “Excuse me, but you’re gonna have to move,” someone behind them said. “We’re opening for our evening shift now.” The two boys looked up and behind them. The boarded-up doorway behind them had been replaced with an ornate shoppe door; the wooden plaque for the Lost Workshop swung overhead. A familiar wolf-girl with tumbling black locks stood behind them in the open doorway.  
  
Izuku and Mineta scrambled to their feet. “Oh thank heaven,” Mineta babbled. “I was scared I’d never find your shoppe again! I’ve gotta talk to Bayleaf-- there’s something seriously wrong with my ring!”  
  
  
*****  
  
“It’s not the ring,” Bayleaf said.  
  
  
The four of them-- Hemlokk, Mineta, Izuku, and Bayleaf-- were gathered around the register at the back of the Shoppe (which was, once again, a humble bric-a-brac store.) Bayleaf had come on the hop when he’d heard that Mineta’s ring had malfunctioned, but when he heard the nature of the problem, he’d laughed. “Trust me, it’s not the ring,” he repeated.  
  
  
Mineta scratched his head. “But you said it increased my brain’s sensitivity? Or something like that?”  
  
  
Bayleaf sighed and shook his head. “Your Quirk already gave you some mental control over your hair balls,” he said. “The ring only amplified that.” he gave Mineta a suspicious look. “You didn’t ‘borrow’ anything else while you were here, did you?” He said with a scowl.  
  
  
Izuku nodded. “You know the tales,” he chided. “Shoplifting at a store like this has its own penalties...”  
  
  
“What? I’m no thief!” Mineta said, offended.  
  
  
“You didn’t ‘sample’ anything while you were here, did you?” Hemlokk said. “Take a bite or sip of anything?”  
  
  
“No, I--” Mineta paused. “No, I did sample some of that cologne you had out...” at their looks he got defensive. “Hey, it looked like a sampler!” He looked over and pointed. “Like that, right there!”  
  
  
A mirrored tray with several bottles on it sat on the corner of a nearby shelf. Mineta trotted over and picked up a familiar cut crystal bottle. “This is the one,” he said, handing it to Bayleaf.  
  
  
Hemlokk and Bayleaf took one look at the label and started to chuckle. “Ah, WHAT WOMEN WANT,” Bayleaf said. “You poor kid. Looks like the shoppe decided to pull a little prank on you.” He held the bottle up and waggled it in his claws. “This is actually marketed in Diagon Alley as a love potion, believe it or not. Or, well, a _relationship_ potion.”  
  
  
Hemlokk nodded, taking the bottle. “The man takes a spritz of WHAT WOMEN WANT, the woman takes a spritz of WHAT MEN ARE THINKING...”  
  
  
“And they spend the next few days able to hear each other’s thoughts and feelings,” Bayleaf concluded. He and Hemlokk gave each other a sentimental smile. “Heck of an experience, we can tell you.”  
  
  
Hemlokk set the bottle down on the glass tray and picked it up. “Of course it has a few drawbacks. As I’m sure you figured out. It only works once per person… and it wears off after three days. And if the person taking the other dose isn’t there, you spend three days just picking up random noise off anyone from the opposite gender.” She took the tray to the back of the store and set it up on a high shelf, well out of reach.  
  
  
Bayleaf clapped Mineta on the shoulder. “So-- good news, your little problem will wear off in about two more days, give or take.”  
  
  
“Two more days of this?” Mineta lamented. “What do I do till then? I can’t take two more days of hearing the girls in my class-- _thinking hate-barbs_ at me!”  
  
  
Izuku coughed. “It sounds like you owe them an apology,” he said. “Maybe if you gave them one, things would get better?”  
  
  
Mineta grimaced, then nodded. Bayleaf chuckled and leaned over the counter. “Back door, second door to the left, three flights up. The Greenhouse is running a special on flowers...” he murmured with a grin.  
  
  
“Do they ship in bulk?” Mineta said ruefully, mentally tallying up his remaining allowance. Bayleaf laughed.  
  
  
_"O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us,”_ the wolfman quoted. “Only thing you can do after an experience like this, Grape Shot. _Learn from it.”_  
  
  
The next day found the girls of 1A receiving a small surprise. As they filed to their seats, at each of the girls’ desks they found a tiny glass vase with a stalk of purple hyacinth in it. The buzz of speculation petered out as Aizawa slouched to wakefulness at his desk. “Attention,” he grunted. “One of your classmates wishes to make an announcement.”  
  
  
Standing at the front of the class (on a footstool, so as to be seen better) was Mineta. He stood with his arms to his sides, ramrod straight. He took a long, nervous breath and spoke with an air of formality. “I wish to take this opportunity to formally apologize to all my female classmates,” he said. “I recently had it brought to my attention that my behavior to them has been… dishonorable and unkind.  
  
  
“I was told that, in the language of flowers, the purple hyacinth is given as an apology and a request for forgiveness. Please consider this my apology to each of you.” He looked uncomfortable. “I’m… still me. I still like what I like, I still think how I think. I’ll still make more mistakes. But I promise I will try to behave better in the future.” He bowed from the waist.  
  
  
There was a moment’s silence. Then someone applauded. As scattered applause went around the room, Mineta’s face went slack with relief. Yaoyorozu looked around and got to her feet. “On behalf of class 1A… or, well, the girls in it… we accept your apology,” she said. She gave him a skeptical look. “Watch yourself.”  
  
  
Mineta beamed and hopped down off his stool. The hostile barbs in the air were already softening; he could feel it. _Well, that’s 1A down-- 1B through 1G to do,_ he thought to himself as he trotted to his desk.  
  
  
He climbed up into his seat as Aizawa began droning the morning announcements. Out of the corner of his eye he caught several of the girls admiring their flowers, and couldn’t help feel a bit of satisfaction. Tsuyu, though, wasn’t. She was sitting with her elbows on her desk, rubbing her head as if she had a terrible headache. _I have some aspirin in my book bag,_ he thought sympathetically. _I wonder if it would help.  
  
  
No, it probably wouldn’t, _she thought back miserably. _I never imagined how NOISY boy’s thoughts were--_  
  
  
Both their heads snapped up and whipped around. Their eyes locked.  
  
  
_Oh--  
  
  
No--_


End file.
